It's that dreaded time of the year again, when that teetering pile of W-2 and 1099 forms haunt your dreams, and the perennial question gnaws at you: "Should I do my taxes myself, or hire an accountant?" A poll here on Lifehacker last month shows that most of you complete your income tax returns using software like TurboTax. In the past few years, I've gone back and forth between using an expensive human accountant and TurboTax.com to file my tax return. This year I decided to do both and see which solution saved me the most money and heartache. Read on to see who comes out victorious in the battle of the human tax accountant versus TurboTax.com.

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Inspired by a relative's spending of nearly $70 on Suze Orman's "Ultimate Protection Porftfolio," J.D. at the Get Rich Slowly blog compiled a lower-cost DIY version that accomplishes the same goal: serving as a base-level, must-do box to ensure financial health and long-term security. Among the items he suggests keeping inside:

• A standard expanding/accordian file
• Will and trust forms/primers
• Emergency information sheets, such as those available free on the net.

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Finance blogger Nickel tracks receipts and other scraps of tax-related paperwork throughout the year in two places: a basket at home, and an envelope in the car. Any time a business or medical expense comes up, in the basket or envelope the receipt goes. Same goes for charitable contributions. Every once in a while, Nickel transfers the contents of the envelope on-the-go to the basket. (Once that's done, you can easily digitise that paperwork with the right scanner.) How do you capture receipts and other tax documents as you go? Let us know in the comments.

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Even if you do all your banking online, there's still one ugly time of year when you've got to deal with a pile of financial paperwork, and that's tax time. If your accountant accepts forms via email, or you just want to save tax documents on your computer, you want a quick and easy way to do it. While most scanner workflows require several steps to digitise documents, the Fujitsu ScanSnap transforms paper into PDF with a single button press. No one wants to spend more time than they have to on receipts, 1099's and W-2's. Let's take a look at how to instantly capture tax-related and other important paperwork to your hard drive on April 15th and throughout the year with the ScanSnap.

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Nobody likes doing their taxes, primarily because 1) it takes time and 2) it involves money—and in the worst cases, owing significant chunks of it. Between online tax forms, software apps like Turbo Tax, chop shops like H&R Block, and your accountant, there are tonnes of ways you can go about tackling your taxes as income tax season quickly descends on us. So, in the face of this wealth of options, we're wondering:

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US-centric: TheJobBored blog posts a decent summary of the major changes to the U.S. tax code that may create new deductions and adjustments for you this year—or take some away. The post also links to an L.A. Times article... Read More »

US-centric: Thanks to the economic stimulus package President Bush just signed into law, eligible U.S. taxpayers will receive a tax rebate—and the Consumerism Commentary blog put together a handy calculator to figure out exactly how much. Plug your income... Read More »

Tax rebates, year-end bonuses, mail-in savings—they're all just money coming in, but the difference in labels can have a serious impact on what we do with it, according to a Harvard researcher quoted in today's New York Times. In a study, half of the participants were given $50 and told it was a "bonus," and the other half received a "rebate." The results:

When unexpectedly contacted one week later, participants who got a "rebate" reported spending less than half of what those who got a "bonus" reported spending ($9.55 versus $22.04, respectively).

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