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It may have been Ben Franklin who said "the only sure things in life are death and taxes." Death may be unavoidable, but at the very least doing your taxes each year can be a significantly easier chore if you use TurboTax Deluxe + State.

I admit it: my taxes were a mess. With stocks gifted to us, stock option sales, and numerous itemized deductions to be compiled, doing the taxes had turned into an all day affair that sometimes stretched into two days. We would do them once, do them a second time to confirm, and then have to do them a third time to figure out why the first two did not match.

It was while doing the 2005 taxes for the third time that I finally broke down and purchased TurboTax Deluxe + State. After using it for the past two years, I can honestly say I will never do my taxes the old way again.

TurboTax is very easy to install and to launch. The interface is fairly intuitive, and the tax wizard will walk you through every single conceivable step and every possible itemization. If you're lucky and work for an employee who uses a payroll system like ADP, it can even connect online and download your W-2 information for you. This is truly the lazy man's tax program! You can back track at any point and make changes as needed, and the whole process is fuss free and straight forward.

Once you've finished your federal, TurboTax Deluxe + State will then allow you to fill out the single (uno, one, the only) state that you picked. And as a final note to this symphony of tax preparation, it can even file electronically if you need.

Where TurboTax falls short is in explaining unusual situations such as stock option sales. It took me a great deal of time to figure out how to accurate report such sales, and I'm still not entirely certainly I did it correctly. Luckily TurboTax also offers audit protection should the IRS feel you've done something wrong.

All in all my experiences with TurboTax Deluxe + State have been tremendously positive. If you are doing anything more then filing a simple return, I highly recommend you look into purchasing this program. You can not avoid taxes, but at least they no longer have to be such a headache.

Learn more about this author, Jeffery Reynolds.
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