Learn to do your own taxes, and claim your financial independence!Doing your own taxes is not as daunting a task as your tax professional might want you to perceive it to be. As a matter of fact, doing your own taxes can be as easy as 1, 2, 3. Actually, tax preparation software has come a long way in the past few years, making it so easy for you to prepare your own taxes, that it's virtually impossible not to be able to understand the process, even with absolutely no knowledge of tax laws. It is a fact, that every year, millions of taxpayers in the USA collectively lose millions of dollars to the government. This unfortunate situation basically happens because their tax returns have been erroneously prepared. Typically, this usually happens because of ignorance on their part, which of course is understandable, but more preposterously, because of ignorance or negligence on the part of the professionals they have paid to prepare their tax returns.The fact of the matter is that you can literally save hundreds of dollars each year, and probably even thousands, just by being in the position to be able to prepare your tax returns yourself. Why, then, should you suffer at hands of incompetent or negligent paid tax preparers?This publication aims to educate you, the taxpayer, on how you can “optimize” your tax return. Optimizing your tax return, essentially means claiming all the deductions and credits that you are legally entitled to, thus maximizing your tax refund, or minimizing your tax liability, if one exists.This publication will effectively equip you with a good basic knowledge of the tax code, so that you will be in the position to protect your cash flows, as far as your dealings with the IRS is concerned.No longer do you have to be intimidated by the complexity of the tax code. Unlike most other tax publications, this publication has been compiled specifically with the taxpayer in mind, and although very comprehensive, it is also concise, and very easy to understand. This publication is very “reader friendly”—having been compiled in layman's terms, using simple language, and avoiding tax jargon as much as possible, as it breaks down the relevant areas of the tax code into understandable segments. The reader, therefore, does not need to have any prior tax knowledge to easily follow what's contained therein.This publication explains every line on the Form 1040 tax return, and in doing so, makes it absolutely clear that preparing your own taxes is not as formidable a task as many of you might perceive it to be. So, for those of you who wish to take on the challenge and prepare your tax returns yourself, you will definitely find this publication to be a very powerful resource tool. Following the guidelines in this publication will enable you to prepare almost any Form 1040 tax return. Furthermore, you need to take into account even the basic savings you can enjoy by just doing it yourself.