Doing your taxes can be stressful enough without you making things worse.
And odds are good that if you aren't careful this year, you will make a mistake, or a lot of them, on your taxes. In a study released last year by the Government Accountability Office, only 2 out of 19 tax preparers surveyed in undercover site visits calculated the correct refund amount. One preparer calculated that a taxpayer was due $3,718 more than he or she was supposed to receive.
Overall, preparer-filed returns showed an error rate of 60 percent, while self-prepared returns showed a 50 percent error rate, according to the GAO.
Of course, there are an innumerable things that could go wrong when you file your taxes. You could put down the wrong Social Security number or take deductions you aren't entitled to. But many mistakes aren't quite so obvious. So when you're doing your taxes this year, keep in mind these common reasons errors get made.
