It's tax season...

A few weeks ago, I met the guy from the IRS who is in charge of the entire e-file program. According to him, 55% of Americans use e-file...and believe it or not, I am not among them.

Yes, it is true. I, who scan everything, and live the digital lifestyle to the fullest use paper. Or, should I say, my accountant-who doesn't want to use e-file, does.

It's actually caused me sincere emotional pain because not e-filing is completely inconsistent with my world outlook.

A few years ago (3, I think), I bought and tried Tax Cut. I gave up in frustration. As a citizen, I was angry that I couldn't figure out how to do it all by myself.

So, Bert DuMars of the IRS tells me how easy it is, how it's just an interview and how he's been working with all of the companies to make it that much easier.

About 2 weeks later, I was reading the RSS feed from Fred Wilson's blog and there was an ad for TurboTax in it (proving that the online ad model has potential, I suppose, despite what my hero Seth Godin might say). I clicked on it and figured I'd give it a whirl.

It's painful, but then again, so is the whole process. However, there was one part where I was thrilled.

TurboTax asks, "do you have any online brokerage accounts?" I put in my E*Trade info and...WHAM!!! all of the tax info is sucked right in!

I was completely jazzed. [My actual words were "F**k Yeah!"]

But I digress...

So, here's the rub.

On the one hand, the process is an interview, but on the other hand, I can't shake that nagging feeling that by outsourcing to someone whose core competency is tax preparation, I'll come out ahead.

Now, granted, she charged me almost $1000 to prepare the return and TurboTax is $80, so there's some cushion there.

What I am thinking about doing is completing the entire process on TurboTax up to right before the e-filing. Then, sending the exact same data to my CPA, sucking up the cost one more year, and then doing a compare/contrast on the returns (and assessing opportunity cost of my doing it myself, of course)

Thoughts? Do you do your own taxes?