They're in your check file, your investment file, your loan files. Some are in a shoebox. So you've decided to skip the sharp pencil routine this year and let someone else prepare your taxes. So you've decided to prepare your own return. Many bright and talented people don't have the stomach for it.
Stomach is all it takes.
If you go step by step, it really isn't that hard. And the IRS actually gives pretty good instructions with its forms. Before you plunge into the depths of despair, there still are things you can do to avoid incurring the wrath of your friends at the Internal Revenue Service. The chances that you will be audited this year are extremely slim. In recent years, the IRS audit rate has run in the 1 percent to 2 percent range.