Elvira

Sounds familiar...

britchicknyc

H & R Block have a good checklist of things to bring with you to their office.

Just click here

http://www.hrblock.com/universal/off...=retailCoupon2

Once you have found an office, just click on "getting ready for your visit" and then answer the questions and it tells you all the documents etc. you will need to bring.

V. helpful I think!

fatbrit

When we arrived got myself The Dummies/Idiots Guide (can't remember!) to Taxes for a read through. Even though much of it was irrelevant to me, it points you towards the difference, the main ones of which are the sheer number of deductions that you can make, some even after the end of the tax year. Never bought it again, but I think it was worth a read through to get me on the right track.

You'll have plenty of time to mug up if you haven't arrived yet. The tax year runs with the calendar year and the filing is April 15.

What you need to keep depends on what you're doing, but as a general rule keep almost everything in America otherwise somebody will always try it on with you with in the land of the con man and, worse still, the government-sponsored corporate con artist. Buy a filing cabinet and file everything.

Elvira

a filing cabinet???

As in just one?

We've been here less than 5 years and we already have 6 filing drawers, 4 crates and countless boxes full of documents

Somehow, in the UK, we managed with a couple of lever arch files...

fatbrit

I have 1 filing cabinet for current stuff (2 drawers -- top household, bottom business). When it gets full, I move it to those Rubber Maid boxes and dump 'em in the garage. Five years plus down the road, think there are about 8 of them -- and most of the business stuff is electronic data saved as mega-pdf files and burned onto CD anyway.

AmerLisa

And you can do it yourself for a lot less hassle and money....

AdobePinon

Agreed. I've been doing mine just fine so far, but I don't have any UK income. Still, things are ever so slowly getting more complicated....

AmerLisa

As they do. We filed for the first time last year and ended up getting a pretty hefty refund. I used Turbo Tax and it was extremely easy. Although I'm positive we won't be getting a refund this year.

Ben

We have used H & R Block twice, on two totally separate occasions, and I wouldn't use them again. Two different offices in different states too. they didn't have a clue what they were doing and we didn't get all our refunds either with them. the last time we used them I was supposed to get some tax back from education payments and they kept insisting that I wasn't entitled. their so called program wouldn't allow them to process it. Last year we went through turbotax online and low and behold the problem surfaced that H & R Block had put things in wrong! We had paid for their guarantee so we went back to them to get it sorted - as far as they were concerned they did nothing wrong because the numbers they put in were what we gave them, even though I kept telling them something was wrong! I am just thankful we didn't owe money and that it was the IRS that owed us. Unfortunately, friends of ours who came over here were not so lucky on their first tax return and ended up owing thousands to the IRS because of a screw up with H & R Block which again they insisted was not their doing. It's OK paying for these guarantees but they are no good when it is hard to get them to sort the problem out!

the point about TIN and SS numbers - I was in the same predicament last year and turbotax online support (which someone else mentioned) were fantastic and knew exactly what to do. You just put in your new SS number on your tax form and attach a letter to the documents that need to be mailed in. We followed up just to make sure everything was OK and we were reasured that we had done everything properly turbotax does a guarantee (which you pay extra for but it was only something like $20) where if you ever get audited they will supply you with an accountant.

When we moved house from one state to another, we went with a local accountant and really pleased we did. He claimed for lots of different things that we never knew we could. He also explained the differences in the state taxes etc. We had also bought a house so there was a lot of paper work involved. We shopped around and did phone interviews with a few accountants until we were happy. He gave us a great price and it was cheaper than what we paid for either of our two visits to H & R Block.

this year we are doing turbotax again. Recommended to us by British friends and the best thing. I wouldn't hesitate in recommending them, especially their online service.

Lottie

So you pay protection against H&R making a cock-up...when you've already paid them to do a job properly

cindyabs

I've used the same tax accountant for 26 years now (through 2 husbands with very different tax situations, ), his fees have steadily gone up of course but one thing is that I can pay an optional additional fee (less than 100 bucks) IF I should get audited by the IRS rather than pay him an hourly rate to handle it, it is covered by this optional fee-kind of like insurance. One of the things I like is that he sends out a yearly newsletter with tax updates and information. He sends me a fill in the blank work book categorywise for my taxes which has taught me what I need and what to be on the lookout for for deductions.

Elvira

Mmmh. I wonder whether your accountant uses the same template for said newsletter and work books as ours?

Partystar

Yep.

You pay for car/life/medical insurance, don't you?

Sue

Agree.......it's the low income families that really get stung by this. The IRS run a annual program called VITA, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. I volunteered for them for a couple of years. Trained volunteers set up in libraries etc around the country and complete and file the taxes on-line for free for low income people and families. It's to try and encourage them not to get RAL's. The interest rates of these "loans" are so high It's heart breaking to see a family due a refund of say $500, getting stuck with a $130 fee for getting their refund quicker.

TN-Dave

The main problem with the 'get your tax money now' loans is that if there is a problem, or if the money takes longer than expected, they charge you interest at ridiculous rates, and there is no cap on the % they can charge. (if you read the small print, it can be huge amounts of interest which end up being higher than the actual refund).