Every year it seems the middle of April rolls around and people are scrambling to do their taxes. Don’t be one of those people! If you have never filed your taxes yourself, for the most part it is ridiculously easy especially with the software packages available.

If you want to give filing your federal taxes a go without any investment, try filing online for free. To qualify, you have to have made under a certain amount (in 2007 the cut-off was $54,000), but a lot of people meet this requirement. You can check out their FAQ which addresses a lot of questions you might have. I used this service about 5 years ago and it was very easy, so I can imagine they have made quite a bit of improvements.

On the other hand, if you have your own business or plan to itemize deductions I would recommend you go with a commercial package such as TurboTax. Overall, however, if you are just reporting the earnings from your employer and taking the standard deduction, this is a perfect solution and you won’t have to pay any commissions!