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Ramit

I knew you were desi, but never knew you were Punjabi. Kiddan! Dude, I'm an even bigger fan of yours. I'm even more inspired to run my blog properly.

On another note, I'd like to purchase the eBook but wanted to know if this is focused for Canadians or Americans?

burrraah!

$20 for an e-book? Are you serious?

$20 isn't too bad. $10 is better, but $20 isn't that bad _if_ it has quality advice. I'm thinking about buying but want someone to post a review in the comments first.

Given the money back guarantee, I have nothing to lose. I'll buy and read it right before I get into taxes. If it teaches me something, I'll keep it. If it doesn't, I'll ask for my money back. Given that this is my first year with side-business income (and deductions), I anticipate that this book will help me.

Also--very important--does the PDF have any sort of DRM on it? Meaning, can I open it in linux with a non-Adobe program?

I like the cover. Thus, I must like the book.

I'll buy it and post a half-assed review here. :oP :o) I'm in kinda deep this year because of a bit of self-employment, so let's see if this comes in handy.

I am an accountant, and from just skimming the table of contents it looks like this covers the basics and then some. The $20 for this book will be much more cost effective than hiring a tax accountant to tell you the same things. I am even considering getting it as a quick reference guide to common credits and useful tips for my own tax planning.

Hey Ramit,

I have already filed my taxes for 2007. On the whole Im getting all my paid fed taxes back but, for state i am being asked to pay 34. So i shut up and paid the taxes.

I am still interested in this ebook. If this ebook would help me change my financial behavior for 2008 and its taxes, then that would be really cool. Anyways, ill buy the book

I have to lodge a slight complaint with the book cover -- taxes are a good thing, they run our country :) The tax man is not some evil fellow trying to take your hard-earned money from you. Taxes are just our "membership fee" for living in the U.S.

Besides that, though, the book looks pretty good, I think I'll pick it up.

From what I can glean so far, the book would seem to provide a good foundation. If you don't know a lot about taxes, then maybe an option for you. For myself, I will wait a bit and see what others think before considering a purchase. I also think $20 for an e-book is high...maybe it's fantastic?!

Just bought and read it. Good advise for US20. It is worth it!

$20 for a 60 pg ebook? All this information is available for free online. This comment probably won't get approved.

Hi Ramit, just wanted to drop you a line to tell you how much I enjoy reading your blog. I'll definitely check that ebook out.

Cheers,

Jonathan

any opinion if this book is useful for someone using Turbotax?

To be honest, I skipped a lot of it because it didn't apply to me. My taxes are pretty straightforward. I think Ramit presented a great way to get an idea of what the entire book is like. Look at the table of contents. Notice each item takes up only one page. Look at the sample page. Now you know what the entire book is like. Although I didn't find most of the stuff relevant to my taxes for this year, I think it will be a handy reference for the future.

pfodyssey: That's a good way to sum it up... I'd agree it's a good foundation. I'm sure it'd provide some new information to those pretty familiar with taxes, but I'm guessing not a whole lot. But hey, money back guarantee, right?

JC: Yes, the information can be obtained elsewhere, but the book may be useful to you because it's concise and presents what's likely the most relevant and key information on those topics. I suppose then you're paying for the presentation of information?

five whys: As for using Turbotax, I haven't used that before but from what I understand, the software basically just asks you questions to maximize your return, right? *If* that's true, I believe the book still has something to offer since it teaches some concepts and gives tips you can use for the future, instead of just evaluating what you've done in the past. For example, it talks about record-keeping strategies for business owners, which is something that can help you a great deal if you get audited. I'm not sure if Turbotax addresses that kind of stuff.

I realize this is an old thread now, but for those of you stopping back here to consider this book before they submit their taxes, here are my thoughts. I bought it this week and finished reading the applicable parts the following day. Also, the author should read this and take note.

My background: 24 years old, single, full-time professional, working part time with my own LLC (consulting), have taxable investments, maxed 401k, maxed Roth IRA but losing eligibility, and am in the 28% bracket. Am competent with my taxes. I used to fill them out by hand but now use TurboTax online because my time is becoming increasingly valuable.

Bottom line: will this book save me more than $20 in my lifetime? Yes. Is this a great book? No. Will I be asking for a refund? No.

It's a lot like reading the IRS web pages, only in a condensed form. There are no magic secrets in this book, and it simply confirmed that I do not get to claim jack-shit besides some basic Schedule A and small business deductions. That's not the books fault, and I suspected that going into this, but it still sucks. ;-)

There is a lot of duplicate information in the book between the "personal" and "business" sections.

It needs a lot more examples, and better examples than what it currently has.

I continually felt like the author compiled information without adding much value. Some value was added, but not significantly.

It did not answer questions that I will probably need to ask a CPA. Being the self-help kind of guy that I am, I had hoped this would replace a sit-down meeting with a CPA. It did not.

I knew most (but certainly not all) of what this book contained, but it's nice that it's all in one place.

The most valuable thing in the whole book to me was the chart comparing Taxable Equivalent Yields to the yields of tax-free municipal bonds. The second most valueable thing was the clear documentation about business write-offs with regard to travel, entertainment, and food.

The last 26 pages are sample forms (that were not helpful to me) and regulations and lawsuit documents that no one will ever read.

One small nit-pick: The page numbers of the book and table of contents did not match the pages of the PDF. So going to page 37 to look at a chapter was not page 37 of the PDF. I found this to be annoying.

Question: On page 49 of the PDF (page 46 of the book), under "Your Business: Consider a Simplified Employee Pension SEP)" there is a graph labeled "Retirement Plan Contribution Comparison". It appears to show a 401k with ~$27,000 in contributions, and I'm trying to figure out how that's possible. Perhaps through employee+significant employer contributions? Why didn't the book explain to me how that's possible? Perhaps it did and I missed it?

Oh, and payment and download was painless. I love that I could immediately copy this PDF to separate locations on my computer and network (for backup and booting into different OSes) without worrying about DRM, different OSes, specific readers, etc. Thanks for that.

-Tyler