Well, I went to my grandmother’s house on April 15th, just a few days ago. First of all, you must know that my grandmother is legally blind. She has a condition called macular degeneration, in which case, basically, she has lost her central vision completely and only sees through her peripheral (and even the peripheral is very poor). Although she will tell you within the first 3 minutes that she meets you that she is indeed blind, you almost wouldn’t know it. She is very ambitious and loves to surprise her family by doing things your typical blind grandmother may not even attempt. She also is the type who prides herself on finding a great bargain. She would buy something that she might need or want one day just because “it was only $2!” Anyways, that is just a little bit of background on my grandmother, just to let you know a little bit of who we are dealing with!
So, I head over to her house that Tuesday morning because she has convinced me that I need some plants in my tiny little yard (Among other things she is an avid gardener. I mean, this woman knows her stuff!). So I walk in her house, in my ‘playin’ in the dirt’ clothes, and the first words out of her mouth are, “would you do my taxes?”
I literally froze in my skin. I thought maybe I’d heard her wrong. “What?” I asked. “would you do my taxes?” Nope, I’d heard her right! I said, “I don’t know the first thing about taxes!” I would always just hand the little papers that my employer send me to my dad whenever he asked for them. I literally know nothing about it! And they had to get in the mail on that day! April 15th! Well, she explained to me that Rebecca (her daughter, my aunt – she and I are relatively close in age) had got online the night before and did her taxes herself…and for FREE. Well, when I heard the word ‘free’ come out of her mouth, I knew there was no convincing her away from the idea. And if Rebecca did it all herself, I supposed that I could give it a whirl. So, we sat down in front of the computer. Me with my sweaty palms and pounding heart, and she with three little social security income papers. I was so nervous!
Well, we went to irs.gov, and found our way around to the TurboTax site. Still I am so nervous, so my grandmother decides that we will call my aunt since she did this the night before. Well, with Aunt Bec on the phone, my nerves calmed a little, and we proceeded through the process. And to my surprise, it was actually quite painless! TurboTax literally walked me through every single step, and we answered its questions and checked the boxes that applied to us, and it printed out our tax return. Wow!
Now, in a few months, once we get word that everything was in order, and the IRS isn’t coming to take my grandmother away, I’m definitely planning to give my kudos to TurboTax.com. It really was very simple. And I’m sure there are people out there who have had a bad experience with it or think its terrible, but to me, TurboTax was my lifesaver that day! And I owe a lot to them!
So….thank you TurboTax! You have not only kept my grandmother out of jail, but you have renewed my sense of self confidence!
