Taxbrain’s Online Past Year Tax Review

Not too many tax sites seem to care about people who need to prepare past years taxes. These are tax returns that people missed filing on the due date.  One of the few online tax websites that actually do have a good past year tax product is Taxbrain.

We decided to test drive their site just like we love to do with all tax sites. We want to make sure what they promise is what they deliver.
So here  is our review of Taxbrain :

Taxbrains Past Year Tax Site

The past year tax process on the Taxbrain site works very similar to current years tax preparation steps. First the Prior year tax section is available as a tab on your taxbrain home page. Once you are inside the tab, you can view all your past returns or start a new past year tax return.

• Questionnaire
• Worksheets
• Review
• Pay
• Print and File

The Quesitonnaire section walks you through some basic steps. It collects your personal information - Names, SSN, dependents etc.  Based on this basic information, several important tax parameters are determined in the tax calculation process  -your filing status, number of exemptions etc. It is really important to pay careful attention in this section. One mistake here and the entire tax return will be incorrect.

The Worksheets

The worksheets are the heart of the past year tax preparation steps. Here is where you will begin to enter your actual numbers - your W2 information, your tax deductions like home mortgage interest, property tax information etc.  If you had a home business or small business, you will be able to put in the numbers for that. There is a section devoted to capital gains and losses - which is where you would put in your stock / bond purchases and sales for the year.

Note on the worksheets:  It is useful to get all your tax documentation ready at the time you prepare your tax return. If you dont have it ready do not sweat it. Take some time, collect all the required documents and you can come back to it. Remember this is an online system, so your data is never lost - everything is stored on Taxbrains computers. You can even work from a different computer.

Review

Once Taxbrain has all the information from you, it will do the math to get your return completed. Actually, it does the computations constantly so anytime you change something anywhere, the entire tax return is immediately recalculated. That is the beauty of software. Imagine doing the same thing using paper worksheets and forms - a single change in any number and you will have to redo all the calculations - on paper. Ouch!!!

Past Year State Tax Return

In all likelihood, if you haven’t filed a past year federal return, you haven’t done a state return too. Taxbrain offers past year tax filing in all states. In fact it will automatically pick up the right form to fill based on the initial questionnaire.

Print & Mail

Once you have paid for the preparation fee, you will be given the option to print your tax return. The tax return can be printed on any printer attached to your computer. Its also available as a pdf download for you to store on your computer.

Since the IRS does not allow you to e-file, you will have to print and mail your tax return.  Taxbrain provides a cover sheet with the mailing address.

Online Support

Taxbrain has outstanding support both using online chat sessions with tax specialists and also via phone. Our experience with them was they were very courteous and knew to speak in English well.