TAKING IN THE SITES / By STEVEN E. BRIER
World Wide Web Offers Tax Help
ncle Sam wants you. Or at least your
money.
And that brings quite a few people onto the World Wide Web, selling their services to Internet surfers and offering to take the sting out of paying taxes.
For tax tips, forms and general information, the obvious starting point is the IRS home page. The IRS has done an admirable job of putting a folksy face on an organization known to strike fear in the hearts of most Americans. The page has links to all the necessary forms -- and there are lots of forms -- to file your taxes.
But if asking the tax man how much to pay sounds like asking a 5-year-old how much candy is enough, there are plenty of other sites to see.
Whether you plan to be attorney general or not, if you have domestic help check out Nanny Tax Inc. Even though federal taxes on household help can now be handled yearly, none of the states changed their programs, according to Nanny Tax. Withholding taxes still must be paid quarterly. The deadline for the fourth quarter of 1995 is January 31 in most states.
Maybe Zoe Baird should have sent them E-mail.
Some basic tips on preparing your taxes are available from the J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax 1996 site, as well as ordering information for the book and an on-line edition, but the site is rather sparse.
For more than you ever wanted to know, organized well and with quite a few helpful links, check out the home page from Net Taxes, published by Net Books and Random House Inc.
There are tips from certified public accountants, software reviews, IRS forms and more, all broken out by chapter headings that take you step-by-step through preparation and filing of your taxes. All this will, if nothing else, ease the churning in your stomach so you can get started on your taxes.
But if you would rather have a computer do the hard work, the most popular programs are Intuit Inc.'s Turbo Tax (available for Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintoshes as Macintax) and Kiplinger's Tax Cut, of Kiplinger Washington Editors.
Both companies have Web sites that offer tax preparation tips, tax advice and technical support for their products. Intuit Inc. is the publisher of Quicken, the popular personal-finance program, and Kiplinger has teamed up with Block Financial Corp., which is owned by H&R Block.
And if computer programs and Web sites cannot quell the butterflies in your stomach, maybe it is time to turn to a real live human to do your taxes. Ernst & Young LLP in Washington, has more than 8,000 tax professionals. Its site has links to lists of tips on tax preparation, common mistakes and a tax calendar.
James P. Ferguson in Washington state is a one-man shop whose site offers a free pamphlet on making a business more profitable and a newsletter with tax, business, and financial planning ideas. Both organizations, of course, do tax preparation and advice.
After it is all done and you get audited anyway, don't panic. Click over to the Interactive Nest Egg for its view on handling tax audits. And better luck next year.
Taking In the Sites is published weekly, on Mondays. Previous columns are available.
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Nanny Tax Inc..
Net Taxes.
Intuit's Turbo Tax.
James P. Ferguson.
Kiplinger's Tax Cut, of Kiplinger Washington Editors.
Ernst & Young LLP.
Internal Revenue Service home
page.
J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax 1996 site.
Interactive Nest Egg for its view on handling tax audits.