Take Control of Numbers

Introduction

When tax software came out for the Mac, I ignored it for several years. And my return was not all that simple, what with self-employed forms to be filled out, as well as those for dependent childcare expenses, and so on. No, I didn’t like working on paper. Nor did I skip my taxes.

Instead of canned tax software, I had my spreadsheets. They looked like the tax forms, with text on each line, and a cell at the right margin to hold the numbers. I enjoyed setting up the interlocking of those cells, since a formula could refer to cells elsewhere on the sheet (and later, on other sheets). I could fill out the Business Use of a Home worksheet, and its total was reflected in a list of deductions on Schedule C, which was used to calculate ...