Turbo tax for filing your taxes in the trucking industry?

I can’t speak for anyone else. But I can tell you my deal with Turbotax.

My sister uses it for her taxes to simplify what I consider to be a very complicated return. She’s a CPA.

She advised me against using it, or allowing her to do my taxes. Simply because TurboTax will miss a lot of potential deductions. And she wasn’t a “transportation” savvy CPA.

 

I get paid 1099. Second year using the software. I of course have to pay 89.99,but that's still far cheaper than the 350 my local CPA /tax folk charges.
If doing your own,make sure to verify via IRS.Gov for the deductions and what not as some things for 2018 have been changed.

 

Ive used it for years. You have to kinda know whats deductible for an oo because turbotax is not good at walking you through stuff for this industry. Every few years i pay a cpa do to them as well just to make sure im still doing it right and it always comes out the same for far less money. This will be one of those years to make sure i dont screw up the the tax law stuff.

 

You have to get the right version. I think it's Premium that has all the forms for the all the deductions we're allowed...it would even calculate the meal allowence percentage correctly for HOS regulated drivers. But like @Rickp says, you have to know what deductions to take...it isn't geared to automatically ask, but in the itemized deduction section you can add whatever your deducting and the amount.

 

Suggestion: dive in head first into the IRS website. Download the forms. Specifically the SCH C. Go thru the instructions for every line item.
Look at Form 4562. go thru the rules.

My path resembles yours. I used TT for years, and at times i could not dive in to find why the calcs were what they were.
Usually related to trying to figure out how to utilize Profit Gauges spreadsheets entries into TT.
That's when I started with the IRS website. Knowing precisely what's required , what's allowed. That's golden, and you save.

 

TT? Screw that pay a professional (not h&r block a real pro) Spend the few lousy hundred dollars. Hell that's tax deductable also.

 

Actually the cost of a preparing your taxes was removed as being a deduction for 2018 tax year. A lot of deductions are removed because of the increase in the standard deduction.

 

Using turbo tax or any other software to prepare your taxes comes down to how good are you with understanding what you can claim. I've used turbo tax for years and it does ask me a couple questions related to being a truck driver, but there is more you need to know then just those questions.

If you are a lease operator or and owner operator, you need to have a basic understanding of accounting. Not saying you need to become a CPA. You need to understand how to create a profit and loss report plus a balance sheet.