Can you do your own taxes? Of course you can!
Doing your own taxes has several advantages. You will better understand tax rules and how your spending affects how much you pay in taxes.
Key things to understand include:
Also by understanding taxes you will be better prepared to understand other financial matters including investments, mortgages, insurance, and real estate. Often sales people can over sell the benefits of certain products because of the supposed tax advantages. You might hear that a mortgage is wonderful because you will have a $12,000 tax deduction. However, if you understand your own tax situation, you might determine that the net tax benefit to you is only $400.
If you do your own taxes, you have the advantage of knowing what your expenditures were for. A tax professional will have to make assumptions based on what you provide to them. They can not read your mind.
Taxes laws change frequently but the basic rules stay the same from year to year. So if you do your taxes this year, next year will seem easier. The third year will seem even easier. The first time you have to figure out your mortgage deduction might be difficult. However, each subsequent year you will not have to learn it all over again.
There are several disadvantages to doing your own taxes. First, it is very time consuming. Your time might be better spent doing absolutely anything else. Second, taxes are very boring. Reading through tax publications and tax instructions can be difficult without sufficient amounts of caffeine. Third, professionals that do taxes all the time can simply complete the process much quicker. They are experts and have taken the courses and read the materials already. That means you do not have to. Fourth, there is math involved. While it is mostly a matter of addition and subtraction, with a little bit of multiplication, some people simply hate dealing with mathematical problems.