The Low-Tech Times

April 15th, 2008, the federal tax filing deadline, is rapidly approaching.

Every year, I’m surprised to find out how many fellow Americans pay accountants or tax preparation companies to file their taxes for them. If you use a professional service, you still need to provide them with all of your paperwork. In my opinion, getting the paperwork together is half the effort of filing taxes; therefore, I do not think it makes sense to pay someone else to file for you unless you find yourself in an extraordinarily complicated situation.

Many other people, who do not use a professional tax preparation service, shell out money every year for tax preparation software like Intuit’s TurboTax.

In fact, neither paying someone to do your taxes nor buying tax preparation software is necessary. For many years, I did my own taxes the old-fashioned way with paper forms and a pen. My father still does his taxes that way.

However, if you’re looking for an easier way to do your taxes yourself, you can actually file your federal taxes online for free. My wife told me about a site called taxactonline.com, which provides an adequate solution for most taxpayers to file online completely free of charge. The site will try to upsell you a more deluxe version of itself and also offer to file your state taxes for a small fee, but you can easily decline the upgrades if desired.

I highly recommend the taxactonline.com solution for those wanting to save money by filing their own taxes.

The Low-Tech Times previously reported that excessive hi-tech habits can lead to stress, cause health problems, ruin relationships, and damage the environment. 

Now, Dr. Jerard J. Block claims that internet addiction appears to be a condition that should be included in the next edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  Here is an excerpt from Dr. Block’s editorial in the American Journal of Psychiatry:

Unfortunately, Internet addiction is resistant to treatment, entails significant risks (16), and has high relapse rates. Moreover, it also makes comorbid disorders less responsive to therapy (3).

I enjoyed reading a recent post by author and blogger Seth Godin.  In his post, he points out that making toast with his hi-tech toaster requires ten steps, while an old-fashioned toaster requires just two steps.  Here’s an excerpt from Seth’s blog:

We recently acquired what might be the worst toaster in the history of the world. It’s pretty fancy and shiny and microprocessor controlled. And it makes toast.

The Low-Tech Times offers this simple advice when you see a hi-tech gadget item for sale:  Ask yourself, does it make sense for me to buy this?