Double Awesome Way To Save On Your Taxes

I was originally planning hire a professional to do our taxes this year, instead of using TurboTax like I normally do every other year. I thought that we would get more money back (yes, we get tax refunds) having a pro do them.

But I didn’t look for a good tax person soon enough, because I’m so awesome at procrastinating. So I figured I would give TurboTax another go and see what the numbers looked like this year and go from there.

Well, the numbers looked pretty darn good to me and I didn’t think paying a professional a couple hundred of dollars would make that much of a difference. So I filed our taxes with TurboTax again. I’ve always been happy with them, so why should I change things?

Right before I paid to file, I checked around to see what sort of coupons and cash back I could find. Why pay more money than you have to, and why not get some cash back to boot?

So here’s what I found:

If you go through Shop at Home, you can get 16% cash back on the purchase of filing your taxes online with TurboTax. The 16% cash back won’t last forever though, it is a limited time offer that can expire anytime.

Plus, Shop at Home also has on online coupon to give you 10% off your federal return purchase. This coupon says that it is good until the end of April, so you should have plenty of time for this.

Double awesome. :-)

Breakdown for our taxes:

Federal Return: $29.99 – 10% = $26.99 + $2.56 cash back = $24.43

State Return: $36.99 (no discount for state) $3.51 cash back = $33.48

Total: $63.98 + $6.07 cash back = $57.91 (savings of $9.07)

Yeah, so maybe it was only 9 bucks that we saved. But you know what, it took me like 10 seconds to click through Shop at Home and save that 9 bucks (after I found out about the coupon and cash back).

Also, all these little amounts add up. Maybe somebody making $100k or more a year doesn’t think the effort (which is little more than a click) is worth 9 bucks—but I do.

Getting a tax refund at the end of the year can be either bad or good, depending on how you look at it and utilize it. Despite the good, bad and the ugly of tax refunds, we’re still loving them. :-)

How do you save money when filing your taxes?
Do you earn cash back for your taxes too?

About Jen Perkins

Likes: saving money, being debt free (aside from our house), zombies, travel, getting money, blogging and dogs. Dislikes: debt, being broke, bunnies, wasting money, not having enough money to travel the world and paying interest. Facebook  ♥  Twitter  ♥  Google+  ♥  RSS

Comments

Double Awesome Way To Save On Your Taxes — 13 Comments

  1. I’ve been using Free Tax USA for 3-4 years now. It walks you through the tax forms by asking simple questions, just like Turbo Tax. It is free to do the federal AND to e-file. It’s also free to do your state return, and just $10 to e-file. You can also pay an extra $5.95 for additional support and audit assistance, but I always go with the regular package and have been satisfied.

  2. Great article. I also like the free eFile system offered by the IRS. The IRS also works in conjunctions with many commercial companies to offer free filing if you meet certain criteria.
    Chris recently posted..How To Save On Water BillsMy Profile

  3. I also used turbotax for federal and state and loved it! Overall, easy to use and very thorough program. Takes you through everything where you might save. Filing the federal return was free! But state (nj) was like thirty bucks to file electromically. So i just printed it out and mailed it in for free. Refund will take longer, but thats Ok. 30 bucks to file electronically was ridiculous in my opinion!

  4. Curiously we have also had to file our taxes recently. I say curious because for historical reasons, our tax year runs from 6th April – 5th April but we have to file for the previous tax year by 31st January!

    Anyway the online filing is fairly straightforward and doesn’t cost anything but it’s interesting how different countries do things in a completely different way!
    John@MoneyPrinciple recently posted..Principled Money Posts #34: the ‘I love being fifty’ editionMy Profile

  5. Every little bit counts!

    For me, saving comes through working with a CPA. I think this individual will do a better job than I will, and will also save me a good amount of time. So, saving on taxes can occur in different ways.
    Digital Personal Finance recently posted..3 Types of IncomeMy Profile