Estimate your 2009 federal income taxes with TaxCaster

Each year we make a pilgrimage to Julie’s parents’ house to complete our federal and state income tax returns for the prior year.  They generously provide us with use of their TurboTax [affiliate link] software, and with our less-than-complicated life, it’s a fairly quick and smooth process.  We usually do this around the first week of February (relatively early in the tax season), but we won’t be heading out there this year until late February or early March.

With the influx of W-2s, giving statements, and the like, we have just been itching to get some idea of whether we’ll be cashing a refund check or paying the piper (we’d rather pay, but that’s another post altogether).  Then I stumbled across TaxCaster Mobile, a free iPhone/iPod Touch application from Intuit, the makers of TurboTax and Quicken personal finance software.

The app is relatively basic, but it allows you to input your income and deductions (with specific categories and suggestions included), and then receive an estimation of whether you’ll be owing the government or receiving a refund.  We should not that this is for federal tax estimation only, the app does not include a state-specific tax estimation tool.

Don’t have an iPhone or iPod Touch? No worries, TurboTax offers an online version of TaxCaster which will work in pretty much any web browser.  They also offer a variety of other tax tools to get you going in the right direction.

Online version of TaxCaster

Our advice?  Don’t wait to get started with doing your taxes.  It might be a little painful, but you’ll be glad you’ve gotten it out of the way, instead of waiting until the last minute on April 15.