Tax Time!

Many people dread tax time, but I love it. Perhaps my opinion is affected by the fact that I've never had to pay anything, and have always received fairly sizeable refunds. Also, the popular opinion is that taxes are a pain to do and are so very time consuming, and many people resort to paying professionals or purchasing software to help them. But that has never been my experience.

I used to fill out the forms by hand, but several years ago found a service called CuteTax Online (now renamed to the much better, although less memorable, name of Tax Chopper) that really simplifies things. While I would never think of spending $50+ for a piece of tax software, this is only $10 which I think is well worth it, considering the time saved and that filing taxes electronically means I get my much anticipated refund quicker and I don't have to pay postage to mail anything. Plus since I've been using it every year I don't have to re-enter all my personal information each year.

This evening I checked my mailbox and saw I had received the last thing I was waiting on before I could start, so I made myself a nice latte then proceeded with working on my 2010 taxes. And I kid you not, making the latte was the most time-consuming part. Maybe I'm just lucky in that I don't have very complicated taxes, due to things like not having education or medical expenses to claim, no dependents or spouse and not being a home owner. But with Tax Chopper, all I had to do is say what forms I had and type in what was on the forms, enter the totals for RRSP contributions and donations, pay them so I could download the forms and then upload them to the CRA. Because it's much faster for them to process electronically filed taxes plus I get my money direct deposited to my bank account, I usually see my refund sitting in my account in about a week. And the timing couldn't be better, because I already know the first thing I'm going to spend it on!