2008 Taxes Using Turbo Tax Home and Business Online

I own a small business which is organized as a single owner limited liability organization (or LLC). Every year I dreaded doing the taxes. It is not so much that the calculations were hard, but rather than keeping everything organized and getting the right kinds of deductions on to the tax forms and then transferring the business income into my personal income is quite a chore. Last year though I used Turbo Tax Home and Business online software.

For $74.95, you get an online version of the Turbo Tax Home and Business software which is ideal for sole proprietors, self employed, a contractor, or a single owner LLC. The software takes you though an interview process for your business and then an interview process for your income tax. The software helps you make the correct decisions with regards to complicated tax items such as equipment depreciation, vehicle use, and home based offices.

Once your have completed the business portion, the software will transfer your profit or loss from the business into your personal income tax (like a form 1040) and allow you to download all your W2 information from online if your employer if you or your partner receive W2's from an employer that participates in online W2 forms. Otherwise, you can enter then W2 manually. The interview process completes for your federal taxes with any kinds of deductions you may qualify for.

For an additional $34.95, you can do your state taxes with a similar interview process. Since each state is a little different in what it allows, sometimes the state version is not quite ready at the same time as the federal version.

Each version discussed included a free electronic filing option directly to the IRS. No printing and mailing reams of IRS tax forms. What is even better than that is that the online version of Turbo Tax Home and Business remembers your previous years answers, depreciation, etc...and will automatically import it into your 2009 payable income taxes. Therefore, you only will need to enter your business or personal information and, unless you have some kind of change of tax status, you will never need to enter it again.

Keep in mind, however, Turbo Tax Home and Business is typically for single person businesses. It is not for people with complicated payrolls, multiple employees, partnerships, multi-owner LLC's, or more advanced corporations such as a C-corp or S-corp. It is great software though for those, like me, that own a single owner LLC small business.

You can purchase the Turbo Tax Home and Business online from Turbo Tax at http://turbotax.intuit.com/. You can even do all your taxes for free before paying simply by creating an account. This is like a free test drive with no obligation so you can try it and see for yourself how helpful it is before you are committed to buying anything.