Wednesday, April 19, 2006

I just did my taxes online and NetFiled them.

I totally feel like a woman of the 90s! (Yes, I know what year it is, but seriously, how long did it take me to get to this point?)

It was so easy that I was convinced that I did something wrong.

Here's what happened: I didn't get a tax package delivered to me. So I went to the post office to grab a tax pack. Took it home for the Easter weekend so that I could get my dad to help me. (The last time I did my taxes myself, I thought I owed money. I gave them to my dad to look over and he got me a sizeable return.)

Anyway, I finally got around to opening the package and reading through all the technical tax jargon. I think I worked on it for a couple of hours before I got to a point where they asked about charitable donations and I didn't have my receipts with me.

Crap.

So I had to wait until I got home to find my electronic receipts on my computer (and request one from the Red Cross from when I made the disaster-relief donation).

Matt and Kendra had both told me they used uFile. They told me you can even just try it out and save your return to go back to later if you want or just use it to check your paper copy.

So I tried it out.

Easiest thing I've ever done.

Seriously.

My mom claims that she's clueless about taxes, but I know that even she could do it.

I think it took me about 1/2 an hour, and it only took that long because I kept reading stuff over and over to make sure I was doing it right. Because it just seemed too easy.

Finally, I was done, I checked it over. Based on recommendations from my dad and uFile, I decided NOT to put in my charitable donations this year, since you get a higher percentage back on amounts over $200. So I'll wait until next year when I have over $200-worth of donations.

Then I pulled the trigger.

Entered my credit card.
Clicked "yes" when they asked if I wanted to NetFile.
Downloaded the PDF to my desktop.
Clicked on the button that said "are you ready to submit to the government?"
Entered my SIN number.
Uploaded the file.
Submitted.

Yep, I'm done.

This is crazy.

Watch me sit here all proud until they come after me a couple months down the road with a reassessment notice.

Jerks.

Still, I'm done!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey I feel competant simply being able to shift gears on my bike & put the chain back on when it comes off. Imagine if I could e-file my tax return..I'd feel like I know I'll feel when I can do the front crawl...amazing!!
Proud of you, you woman of the ninties!

Sara Desjardins said...

Hey Cath!

I do my taxes every year online as well. This is the 4th or 5th year I've done them myself. Never takes more than 20-30 mins. I do them near the end of Feb when I get all my tax paperwork I need in the mail and just before the RRSP deadline b/c the website I use (www.quicktaxweb.ca) allows me to fiddle with how much I want to put into RRSPs so I can make sure I never owe money. It costs me $21.95 to do it. Easy Breazy! This year I sent it in on Sun Feb 26 and got it back the following Wed. That's what I get for filing super early :) And it's easy to file super early when it's super easy to do it yourself!!!

:)