I do them manually, using pen and paper and snail mail. This is my eighth year straight doing it this way, and so far it's worked perfectly. The technical overh

I do them manually, using pen and paper and snail mail. This is my eighth year straight doing it this way, and so far it's worked perfectly. The technical overhead of e-file, or TurboTax and its ilk, puts me off. Every year I have one or two W-2 forms, and a income deduction form for interest paid on student loan. For federal, state, and local combined, it all takes no more than 3 hours. Invariably, the state taxes have the worst instructions, and they are usually very poorly designed, compared to the federal IRS-1040. That goes for KY, CA, and MD, the 3 states I've filed taxes in. My refund (if any) never takes more than 4-6 weeks to arrive via direct deposit. Doing taxes manually gives me (a perhaps false) sense of control over the process. Most importantly, it only costs two postage stamps.