Tax Preparation: The Amount Of Time Needed To Complete Itemized Taxes Versus Standard Deduction Taxes

If you are looking ahead to tax time, you may be considering itemized tax forms for the very first time. However, you may have also heard a rumor that itemized tax returns take forever to complete. Without really knowing how long it takes to complete a standard form versus an itemized one, how can you be certain of the time constraints? Better yet, if you knew you could gain a thousand or more dollars simply by filling out "the long form," a.k.a., the itemized tax form, why would you not? To get a better idea of how much paperwork and how much time it takes to complete a standard "short" form versus an itemized "long" form, here are the facts.

Do Not Let the Numbers Fool You

Purportedly, people who file the itemized long form will require twenty-two hours to complete it. However, when these hours are broken down into duties related to preparing and filing taxes, more than half of these hours is all about filing, scanning and/or uploading your documents during the course of an entire year. If you only want to know what it will take to plug numbers into a software program that files your taxes online for you, usually twenty-two hours drops to two to four hours, depending on which tax preparation company you cite. From the first name or number you plug into an online filing program until you hit the "file and send button," a couple of hours is all it takes.

Additionally, some far-out numbers have been reported for the short, standard form. Again, the numbers quoted by these tax prep information sites is based mostly on the time committed to collecting your documents and information. Otherwise you can expect the short, standard form to be completed in one half to one fourth the time of the long form (about one to two hours).

Tax Preparation By a Pro

Not surprisingly, when you meet with a tax prep expert, the time preparing your taxes seems to go even faster. Yet, it has less to do with the amount of time filling in the form and more to do with the fact that the tax professionals know what they are doing, do dozens of forms a week during tax season and understand the tax laws so well that they do not get tripped up on the wording of a question on the forms. While you can certainly prepare your own taxes online, you might find the whole process a little less frustrating and a little less time-consuming by meeting with a tax preparation professional, such as Jack Landis And Company. Regardless of which form you choose, then, the amount of time "needed" will seem like nothing at all.