DEATH and TAXES, originally uploaded by numberstumper.

I have successfully beaten the tax beast for 2008, or at least the federal and state beast. The local taxes are not so beastly — more like a little varmint. They can wait until tomorrow.

What a relief it is to have this task done!

I use Intuit’s TaxCut TurboTax. (UPDATE: I continually confuse the names of TurboTax and TaxCut, two competing products, even though I have been using TurboTax for years. I tried TaxCut one year, and it was OK.) Intuit has been steadily improving this software year by year, but this year I saw a marked improvement. I feel much more confident, and have a clear sense of how to track expenses this year for an easier time next year.