We had used some of the tax services then switched to a CPA. The charges for their time and for each different form they filled out were very high. Mel ran upon an online filing program called Free Tax USA. There is no charge for the federal form and you only pay for the State form and that's a very small amount.
You can start filling out the form as soon as you have your first tax information and as you receive more, you can enter it. The form is held in a draft form until you submit. As you add and modify things, it changes the whole filing for you. Itemize and it tells you how much of that is allowed or if it's allowed at all. After everything is entered, you do a submittal and it will tell you what should be omitted, or how you should change your filing and whether you should switch to a straight form or stay with an itemized form.
The program updates every year with new tax codes and calculates everything to give you the lowest taxes and highest refund if you have one coming. We went from less than $1000 a year federal refund with a CPA to anywhere from $4000-6000 with Free Tax.
This year we got our refund the same week we filed. You can do it all for under $50 a year.
