You are required by law to file a tax return with the federal government if you earn an income over the course of the year. You will probably want to file one anyways, regardless of the law, because filing a form for your federal taxes is the only way to get your tax refund. That’s another issue though.
There are a number of ways to prepare your taxes. You can choose to find a local accountant or go to a special tax preparation service such as H&R Block. You can just fill out the basic forms yourself and hope you did it right. Finally, you may shoot for the middle ground and use tax preparation software to fill in your tax forms and ultimately send them to the IRS.
The software is incredibly easy to use. You just have to fire it up and enter the required information when it asks for it. It’s really just about as simple as filing through one of the major franchises, since it just goes through a standard filing procedure and eventually makes final suggestions about what deductions you should take. Once you’re all done, the tax return will be sent via e-file to the IRS for full processing.