Most Recent Posts

Tax day is looming and taxpayers are scrambling to gather receipts, W-2 forms and other documents. For many, gone are the days of paper ledger books and calculators, now that there's software to figure out how much they owe.

Tobie Stanger, a senior editor at Consumer Reports, tells NPR's Renee Montagne that when — sometimes free — online programs and smartphone apps are available, they're worth a try. "People should take advantage of it and not be afraid to try doing it yourself because you could save yourself $200 [to] $600," she says.

Stanger says Consumer Reports hasn't tested every software program and app out there, but many of them make tax preparation easier and more efficient.

Consumer Reports lists these few things to look for when preparing taxes online:

Investigate what documents the website supports.

Make sure the site can handle your state taxes.

Check out the complaints the site may have.

Don't get sucked into floating pop-ups.

Think about the cost.

Here are edited highlights of the interview with Stanger:

On available digital tools

If you expect to have an adjusted gross income of $57,000 or less, the easiest thing to do is use the IRS website — they have a section called Free File. You can prepare and file your federal income taxes for free with one of 15 companies that have signed up with Free File. If you think you're going to have an adjusted gross income that's greater than that, you can use the search engine, type in tax preparation and a number of names should come up. One that everybody might know is TurboTax. H&R Block has its own online version, and TaxAct is a good one because everybody can file their federal return for free.

On the best and most helpful software

There are charitable deduction trackers like ItsDeductible. It works with TurboTax but you can also use it online even if you don't use TurboTax. If you have receipts throughout the year there's something called Shoeboxed. You actually send the company your receipts and they scan the documents for you and upload it. Then, you can then download it to your tax software or use it however you want.

On online identity theft

[Tax software developers] say they use bank-level security encryption. If you're comfortable with online banking, you can be comfortable filing your taxes online. If you find that you have trouble getting your refund because the IRS tells you somebody else took it, you should definitely contact the IRS right away.

On smartphone apps

There are apps to file 1040EZ — which is a very simple form — through TurboTax or H&R Block At Home. You photograph your W-2 form with your smartphone and it will import your information directly into your 1040EZ; it goes into your return and then you're able to file it directly from your smartphone or you can go online and do it.

BOOK REVIEW: Writing Well Is The Wronged Wife's Revenge In 'See Now Then' Feb. 5, 2013

Black and Klemski quickly learned to get over any scruples about wearing trousers to work. "You'd be climbing all over these pipes, and testing the welds in them," Black says, so skirts were impractical. "Then they had a mass spectrometer there, and you had to watch the dials go off, and you weren't supposed to say that word either. And the crazy thing is, I didn't ask. I mean, I didn't know where those pipes were going, I didn't know what was going through them ... I just knew that I had to find the leak and mark it."

She never asked what was in the pipes, "because they told me not to," Black says. "I'd come from a Catholic school where I minded the nuns, and from a family, did what my parents told me ... so then I did what the boss told me!"

Klemski and Black say the secrecy surrounding Oak Ridge didn't make them nervous. "But see, we didn't have all these things that you all have now," Black says. "We didn't have cell phones, we didn't have TVs. If we wanted to know the news, we went to the movies and we watched the newsreel, so it didn't bother me ... and if somebody was to ask you, 'what are you making out there in Oak Ridge,' you'd say '79 cents an hour,'" she laughs.

They only learned that they'd been processing uranium when the news of the Hiroshima bombing broke. "That was the first we heard," Klemski says. "At that time, the Knoxville News-Sentinel came out and it was five cents a copy, but that day, when the bomb was dropped, it was a dollar," Black adds.

"At first, we were really excited," she continues. "We thought, oh, we've done something to help win the war. It wasn't till after we saw the devastation — you know, we didn't like that, but we were glad that we had a part in bringing the war to an end." Klemski chimes in: "I certainly was happy that I was here, and that I was part of the war effort too."

That was the overriding sentiment at Oak Ridge, says author Kiernan. "This world that they were in, the world of early 1945, was not a world that knew what nuclear winter was, it was not a world that knew what a fallout shelter was," she says. "All they knew was the war, and the day the bomb dropped, all they knew was, this new superbomb has dropped, and it looks like the tide is turning for us."

"I was really upset, you know, about all the devastation, but there was nothing I could do about it," Klemski says. "They asked us to stay on, and they were going to do research on, you know, something to see if they could help do something for peacetime," Black adds. "And we thought that would be the end of all wars."

Read an excerpt of The Girls of Atomic City

Kenyans go to the polls to pick a new president Monday. The last election, in 2007, was followed by weeks of tribal violence in some cases orchestrated by politicians themselves. This time around, one of the presidential candidates is accused of war crimes and many are accused of land grabbing and corruption.

The XYZ Show, Kenya's version of The Daily Show, is making it all a laughing matter. The TV show uses puppets to poke relentless fun of Kenyan politicians. While fueled by the public's frustration, the show is also an example of the free speech the citizens have not always had.

In the mock XYZ Show presidential debate in February, which aired the night before the real presidential debate in Kenya, the puppet moderator asked pointed factual questions. The moderator prods the character of presidential candidate Raila Odinga about the doubling of interest rates during his time as prime minister.

But the puppet politicians never answer the questions asked. They just give speeches.

"I think you should not ask what Raila has done as prime minister of this country," the Odinga puppet replies. "But rather ask yourself what you will do for Raila when he becomes the president of this republic!"

Jon Stewart once described the writers' room at The Daily Show as "a gathering of curmudgeons expressing frustration and upset."

In the writers' room of The XYZ Show, there is a lot more frustration than humor. The week of the presidential debate, producer Julian Macharia spent a few minutes ripping the real event.

"The questions from the public, for pete's sake, 'What will you do for our teachers?' I felt like saying, what? How about ask, 'What happened to the last three promises?' " he says.

Head writer Lily Wanjiku says the greed is "out of control."