Experience with filing tax return in US

I had a yet again new experience in US. I filed my Income Tax return today. In India, I never used to bother about such 'overheads' as I always used to rely on my father to handle such matters. But here, when I have to even handle things like cooking and cleaning and grocery on my own, this was not a surprise that I had to take care of this on my own.

Here there are two types of tax. One is state tax and one is federal tax. The federal tax has an online form which can be filled in easily and can be printed and posted to the IRS office in Austin, Texas. But the state tax has no such facility as online form. So we needed some guidance on that one. On a friend's recommendation we decided to go to a consulting place which gives guidance on tax matters for free. Yes, it was absolutely free! So, even in today's world, there is something called free service and free advice.

Now this place is about 2.6 miles from our place and the timing was 9 to 12 on Saturday morning. We decided to test the strength of our legs and decided to walk! We normally walk about 1.5 miles to the school from our place daily so we thought it would not be too much. And to reach early and avoid sitting in queue, we thought we would start early.

So here we were, woken up at about 7.15 on a Saturday morning, cursing the government for the complicated tax filing procedure, wondering why they could not do it online! We started at about 8.15 from our place and kept walking. And then when we were almost half way, my devilish mind started playing tricks on me. I had read that out of two such centers, one center is closed on a last Saturday of the March. And I started having doubts about whether it was this center or the other one! We tried to call the place on the way but no one was answering as it was still not 9. Karthik had made all the plans of beating me up if the place was closed!

We actually crossed down-town of Tucson and it was so surprising because we had a feeling that down town was pretty far. But when we were walking, it didn't feel that way. We finally reached there and to my relief, the center was open.

So this center is a place where 'not so wealthy' people of Tucson come for tax related guidance. And they have volunteers who work for free to help people out. I was really impressed by this kind of facility. It was totally a non-profit institute. Not only non-profit, but they actually didn't charge any thing. Neither did they expect any tips etc. I was taken to an old man who had retired from service and he was volunteering there. He was a very nice gentleman. As expected he hardly could use computer but he was trying his best! And at every step, he used to explain to me what those fields meant. And he said, next year when you come to this center, you will fill the form yourself and I will sit besides you and watch !

It took him long to complete all the forms but he did it very meticulously. And we were done before 10.30 or so. I had not expected it to be so smooth but it turned out to be a nice new experience. So now I am a tax-paying alien resident in this country! With this, I have three tax returns on my name. Two in India and one here!!