Small farm.... Turbo Tax?

EMTspud · Feb 9, 2015

Hi everyone. I have a small farm, and have gross annual sales of around $1500/ year. After expenses, I clear about a grand. A few of my acres are in farm deferral for county property taxes. My wife and I pay a LOT of money for an accountant to do my taxes. Outside the farm stuff, my taxes are pretty straightforward.

My question is this: Can I use one of the higher end Tax programs available for my computer? Does anyone have experience using one of these programs (ie: Turbo Tax) with a small amount of farm income?

Do the programs allow for "Schedule F"? Farm filings.

Thanks in advance.

mddorange · Feb 9, 2015

Yes you can. I use Turbo Tax and already have my refund back.

Gunny · Feb 10, 2015

Go for it, no sense paying someone to do something that you can do, and with Turbo Tax, it's a fairly simple job.

Turbo Tax is taking some heat this year over changes they made in the series lines and over the state tax issue, but I've been using it for years and I didn't want to switch over something new.

The first year I had farming income and expenses, I hired a tax preparer to do my forms, then I used that years forms as a guide the next year when I did my own taxes. After that, the program would import a lot of data from previous years and walk me through while asking questions about income or expenses I'd had the year before and if they still applied.

I'm sure that H&R Block and the other tax preparation program are also good, I just started with Turbo Tax and I've stayed with them.

Bird · Feb 10, 2015

I've used TurboTax for many years, including when I was including Schedule F, although I haven't used Schedule F in the last 12 years.

rtimgray · Feb 10, 2015

I used TurboTax for a few years, and really liked it, but last year they changed which edition supported the Schedule F. It ended up costing me about $80 to file my federal and state because I had to get the Home and Small Business or something like that. I really liked TurboTax, but I wasn't going to pay that much.

I did mine this year on TaxSlayer and I liked it pretty well. I still like TurboTax a little better because of the familiarity, but I'll learn on Taxslayer. I was out only $27 for all my stuff on Taxslayer. I did not check TurboTax this year to see which edition supports Schedule F and the associated forms (like 4136 and 4562).

Whichever you choose, I'm sure you'll be happy with it. Good luck and take care.

WM75Guy · Feb 10, 2015

I file 1040 long form with Schedules A, E, & F. I really like the H&R Block Basic for $19.99 downloaded. You can talk online or on the phone to a tax professional for free and get free in-person audit support. Filed 02/02/15, got my refund today.

fishheadbob · Feb 10, 2015

I've been dong a small farm with Turbo tax for many years. It helps if you have some idea what to include; I never thought TT did a great job of hunting out any oddball deductions you might have. My method is to look at everything I spent and see where it fits onto a schedule F.
FWIW when my tax system was more complicated with Limited Partnerships and a closely held corporation I payed a CPA firm a lot of money for my taxes. On close look at their filing forms I realized they were using a commercial version of TT. Yes they had much more tax knowledge than me and did the LP and corporation well but I don't think they knew beans about farming.
City guys with few farmers.
I would never try anything I'm uncomfortable with like oil or timber depletion but I haven't had a timber sale in a long time.
It also depends on your comfort level. I worked for the Feds for a long time and routinely read farmers tax returns as part of my job.