Yeah, ever since the code change we've been standard. Makes for easy and efficient filings.
Did my taxes today. Used standard deduction for my whooping AGI of $4040Yeah, ever since the code change we've been standard. Makes for easy and efficient filings.
Itemize. Our taxes are complex and we have substantial charitable giving.
Intuit/TurboTax lobbied to keep the tax code convoluted so they could sell software. F them.
I have been preparing taxes as a professional for close to 50 years. Back in the paper and pencil days you had to make a choice. Now the software automatically goes with the method that gets the best result. In order to itemize I may have to make an override selection to itemize when the standard deduction is better. There are a few circumstances when it is required. Since Arizona allows a partial charitable contribution deduction even if you do not itemize, filling out Sch A automatically transfers that amount the Arizona charity worksheet.Most tax programs allow you to enter all the info and it will determine what's the most advantageous. But the standard deduction is always the minimum, so you can't get in trouble for picking that over itemized. I'd think that if someone did it by hand, itemized, and mistakenly deducted less than the standard deduction, the IRS would correct it. I've had a few things in my favor that were automatically done by the IRS, like a tax credit that I didn't think I was eligible for. I ended up with a nice check from the Treasury.
Recommend FreeTaxUSA or just IRS DirectFile if your State participates.Just finished 2024 taxes. TurboTax is awesome, although I don't like all non-stop marketing in a trickery manner TurboTax uses to get you to give them information or buy an additional service.
What deduction selection do you chose on your taxes? I go with standard deduction, seems fairly easy and our taxes are not complicated. Anyone BITOGer with non-complicated taxes select itemized deductions, and if so why?
Yes, you can avoid the $14.99 State filing fee by just e-filing your federal return if your State has a free file system of its own, like MyTaxIllinois. It's very easy to use MyTaxIllinois as soon as you have your federal tax filing to go from.freetaxusa.com in use for a decade
free to use, everything is online for both online filing and payments/refunds
works well in combination with eftps.gov for estimated tax payments during the year
last decade std deduction worked best
Our federal income tax (the actual amount of income tax for the 2024 year) wasn't much over $100 this tax season (2025).On this topic, I always found it funny how people carelessly fork over several $100 on an accountant who then just plugs their info into their SW and takes the standard deduction to collect their fee![]()
On this topic, I always found it funny how people carelessly fork over several $100 on an accountant who then just plugs their info into their SW and takes the standard deduction to collect their fee![]()