Back when I had to file taxes for the first time, I was both lost and confused, and honestly,
a little bit frustrated that after years of education learning things like trigonometry
and poetry, they had never taught me something so common as how to file your taxes.
But at least I can find the cosine of a triangle, right?
Anyways, this video is the video I wish I had back then and hopefully it will help you
get through doing your taxes for the first time.
So, without further ado, let's get started.
So I'm not gonna waste your time on this grand explanation for why we pay taxes.
All you really need to know is that we pay taxes to fund the government, you need to
fill out both a federal and a state tax return, and the deadline to pay your taxes is April
15th.
When people talk about "filing taxes," all they really mean is filling out these complicated
tax forms and mailing it to the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, along with any payments that
you owe for taxes.
I'll put a link in the description below to help you figure out if you even need to file
taxes but generally speaking, if you had a job at any point during the year, you should
file your taxes because you might owe more taxes now, or you might be getting a refund
because you overpaid on your taxes throughout the year.
Alright, so how do you actually file your taxes?
Well, there's 3 main ways to do it.
The first way is to fill out those tax forms manually.
I'll put some links down in the description to learn more but honestly, this is probably
one of the worst ways to do it, especially for your first time.
Moving on.
The second way to do it is to just have a professional do it for you.
This can be a good option if you have a particularly complicated tax situation such as owning your
own business, going through a major life change, or you forgot to pay taxes in the past.
But frankly, this option can get expensive and if this is your first time filing taxes,
your situation is most likely not that complicated to even need help in the first place.
That's why most people use the third option which is to use tax preparation software to
help you do your taxes.
The way tax preparation software usually works is that they ask you a bunch of questions
about your income and possible deductions and then they fill out your tax returns for
you.
This option is pretty easy and very popular but it also often comes with a fee.
However, many tax preparation software can be used for free if your adjusted gross income
is less than a certain amount.
You can kind of guesstimate your adjusted gross income by adding together all the sources
of income you've made throughout the year.
The IRS has a list of free software that you can use to file your tax returns that I'll
link down below.
When you're looking through the list of options, pay extra attention to the requirements you
need to meet in order to use their software for free, and check whether or not they provide
a state tax return for free as well.
Remember that you need to file both federal and state taxes so you want a software that
can fill out both for you at the same time to make things easier.
If you aren't sure which one to use, I've found that TurboTax is one of the easiest,
but it's also one of the most expensive options to choose.
On the other hand, FreeTaxUSA is often praised for actually being free while a lot of other
"free" tax software finds a way to sneak fees into your return.
The only drawback I see with them is that they charge a flat fee for your state tax
return, but honestly, the price is still pretty good and they are very upfront about it.
And lastly, my personal favorite tax preparation software has always been TaxAct.
They're a good alternative to TurboTax but a little bit cheaper, but just like TurboTax,
they also find little ways to upsell you on certain features.
Now before you use any of these methods to file your taxes, make sure that you have all
your tax related documents ready.
Your employer should be sending you a form W-2 which basically lists how much money you've
made throughout the year and how much in taxes has already been withheld from your paycheck.
You might also get forms from your bank if they've paid you more than $10 in interest
throughout the year, or forms from any other sources of income that you earned.
Most of these forms are supposed to be sent out by January 31st so if you are expecting
a form and you haven't received one, you should contact your company to see if a mistake was
made.
Well, I hope this guide will help you through doing you taxes for the first time but before
I go, I do have one more piece of advice which is to save a copy of your completed tax return
once you finish it.
You never know when you'll need to reference your old tax returns in the future so try
to keep a physical or a digital copy of your tax returns for your own records.
Anyways, thanks for watching.
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