Dumb question: How do taxes work?

Huh? I’ve been doing it every year from the Deluxe ver, which includes one state. (I refuse to pay the electronic filing fee to TTax, when a ~$1.00 stamp will do.)

I even used the California partial-year resident for my kids’ who got a PT job at their OOS colleges. All printed from TTax and mailed snail mail to Sacto.

VITA volunteers have little experience with multiple states, especially an odd duck like Indiana. In fact at most tax offices the preparer would probably contact someone within that state to help them, unless they have have a
person that has experience with multiple state returns. I wouldn’t trust that someone in Colorado wouldn’t need at least a little time to look up information on the tax return. IN doesn’t make it easy with their forms either, requiring the same information on multiple forms without a great deal of explanation.

Check your local library, ours always has volunteers to help people with tax returns.

I didn’t file a tax return until after I gradated from grad school. It’s not that hard if you weren’t self-employed, even with your somewhat more complicated circumstances.