(MONEY Magazine) – It figures that Harry Levine of Hingham, Mass. would do his own taxes, since he does everything else. Assistant principal of Avon (Mass.) High School, Levine moonlights as a consultant for two neighboring school districts -- and as a building contractor, a part-time police officer and the landlord of a vacation cottage he owns on Cape Cod. For taxes, Levine depends on his home computer. Like most tax preparation software, the program he uses, MacInTax (Softview, $250), takes any number he enters and inserts it wherever it belongs on the return. Once all entries are made and the arithmetic is finished, the computer prints the return on IRS- approved forms. This year he expects to complete his entire joint return in four hours, even though he and his wife Lois file Schedules A, B, D and E and Forms 2441 (child-care credit), 2106 (employee business expenses) and 8598 (computation of deductible home mortgage interest). During his pencil-and- calculator days, all of this took him as long as 18 hours. Even with the computer, Levine still needs a basic grasp of taxes, which he updates each year by reading relevant IRS publications. To save time organizing, he pays for most of his deductible expenses during the year with checks, so he can trace his deductions simply by flipping through his checkbook. -- E.S.

BOX: THE BOTTOM LINE Time spent: four hours Fee saved: $500