Using tech to gather your data

Whether you do your own taxes or rely on a professional, you'll still need to gather data, and there are plenty of tech tools that can help. Nearly all investment companies and some banks give you online access to 1099s that report interest and dividends. Most will also mail you forms, but I always worry I might miss seeing an important piece of

mail, so I often download my forms instead of relying on the mail. You can also go to the DMV to find out how much you paid in car licensing, and if you're a home owner, go to your county's tax collector's site to find out how much you paid in property taxes during the tax year.

Some years I deduct office and travel expenses, which I'm able to capture from my bank and credit card online sites or via Mint — a free service from Intuit, that can be programmed to automatically capture data from most banks and credit card companies. I can export my Mint data

to a spreadsheet and use either Excel or Google Sheets (a free online spreadsheet) to sort and analyze my expenses by both date and category.

My CPA has his own online portal that allows me to upload documents including 1099s and W2s. In most cases, I just send him files I've downloaded, but if need be, I'll scan them and send him a JPG or PDF. If you don't have a scanner, you can use your phone to take a picture of the documents.

For many taxpayers, using tax software or an online service is just as easy or perhaps even easier than using a professional,

especially if you don't run a home business, have rental income or have a complicated investment portfolio or other factors that make it harder to do your taxes. Right now, my taxes are a bit complicated, but when they weren't, I found it much easier to enter my data in TurboTax then it was to fill out the forms my CPA needed so that they could prepare my taxes. Plus, by doing it myself, I had a better handle on my situation as well as my income and expenses.