Richard J Kinch wrote:

Don't listen to all the scairdy-cat advice. The wheel would never have
been invented with the typical mindset about taxes and liability these
days.

If your intent is to report the honest numbers, then file the Schedule C
and 4562 for depreciation with your best honest numbers. The risk of ever
having to prove your reporting is very low.

The "hire an accountant" advice is silly, because the true cost is actually
30 times what it might appear, reflecting the chances of such backup
actually mattering in the real world.

The difference in outcomes from doing it yourself versus hiring a
"professional" is minimal, and not worth the expense. It's neurotic to
prepare the perfect income tax return, because there is no such thing to
begin with, and your amateur approximation is good enough considering the
unlikelihood of anyone ever reading your return beyond checking arithmetic.

But, DO get one of the $30 a year tax prep programs! They are
great. They have this insane "interview" mode, I turn that off
immediately and start filling out the forms. I use "Tax Cut"
but there are a few others. It handles depreciation schedules
(where this thread started) and all the important Schedule X's
that you need for a full 1040 return.

Every once in a while the IRS has a complaint about my return,
they find some bit of income I missed reporting or whatever,
they just sent a notice, and I send them a check for the usually
nominal amount. The way it has been working for the last 6 or
so years is I get nearly a full refund of all taxes paid from
the IRS, and have to send about $1500 to the state, as the
federal deductions don't help as much there. I've been doing
this for 22 years now, the last 19 or so without any accountant,
and have never been audited.

Jon