Did you complete your tax returns yet?
Posted on March 28, 2025

I received our tax reporting statement from Fidelity on Saturday, February 8. That’s the day Patti and I left for a week in Jamaica. I started and completed our returns on Sunday, February 16. The IRS deposited our refund on February 26. Ten days! This is my third year with TurboTax, and it was the smoothest yet. TurboTax estimated I’d complete our federal return in 1½ hours. I forgot to pay attention to the timer on the TurboTax screen as I worked on it, but I’d guess I spent closer to 2½ hours to complete our federal and state returns. I paid TurboTax $112 for the two returns. That’s A LOT less than I used to pay an accountant.

I was glad to have my estimate of my tax return – refund due – to tell me that I had entered everything correctly: I don’t see the final return until I have paid TurboTax. Here’s the spreadsheet I used. The one for a single filer is here.

(FYI. I withhold the total amount I estimate for taxes + ~$500 when I take our RMDs in December. I could withhold less – 90% of my estimate and then pay the balance when I file. At today’s money market rates, I would make about 1% on that balance by holding on to it for roughly four months. I don’t fiddle with that. I’m a lot happier if I file my taxes within a week or so of getting my consolidated tax reporting statement from Fidelity; I also like the fact that I don’t have to pay taxes when I file.)

== State taxes: I messed up ==

I have not received my refund from Pennsylvania. That’s taken about six weeks in past years, but that won’t hold this year. I looked over our 2023 return in January and found I made an error: I had some outside income that I failed to report. I filed an amended return and sent the department of revenue a check for the added taxes and interest that I owed. They cashed my check and wrote and said my interest calculation was all that I owed: no added penalty. Then they sent me a check two weeks later with no explanation. That makes no sense. They made an error. I wrote to them with a spreadsheet that explains their error, but I think they will have to spend time to get the correct net amount they owe me: the refund due for 2024 less the amount they incorrectly sent me. 

Conclusion: I completed our 2024 tax returns in less than three hours of work with TurboTax. That was about twice TurboTax’s time estimate, but I was happy with that. I paid TurboTax $112; that’s a LOT less than I paid an accountant in the past.

I got our federal tax refund in ten days. I messed on my state tax return; I think I’ll be waiting a bit longer for them to close out my 2024 tax return and send me the proper refund amount.