Taxes and Lawn Equipment

I have just filed my income taxes and I feel great about that.
I use Express1040 and that makes filing much simpler than pouring over IRS booklets that never make any sense to me. They guide me through federal and state forms, then e-file them for me and I get a confirmation of acceptance from both federal and state agencies. Turbo Tax is also a very good company to use. I had already started with Express when I tried Turbo and they both came up with the same outcome.

Now the other thing I want to say today is about lawn equipment. I followed manufacturer's instructions for the end of the season storage of mowers and other small engines for years. Those instructions say to drain all fuels before putting equipment away for the winter. Every year in the Spring I had so many problems getting the equipment to start. I would end up using ether based sprays to get things to start and that is hard on engines. Many times I had to remove carburetors and super clean them before the engines would start. Now, for the last two years I have only used premium gas in lawn equipment, gas with ethanol has small amounts of water in it and that can cause rust and pitting in fuel components. If you have a large riding mower they will have a fuel pump and the pump has a diaphragm. The water in ethanol will rust the diaphragm and clog it and reduce its flexibility, causing the engine to run poorly. These days I leave the gas in the riding and push mower tanks and put Stabil (fuel stabilizer) in them (follow instructions for amount to put in). This year and last, both started right up and ran just fine. I hope this information will help you and save you a lot of grief next year. I use fuel stabilizer in my chain saw because when I buy a gallon or two of gas for it, I may not use all of it in a month's time and any gas you buy deteriorates after a month (according to Jay Leno and he knows a lot about cars).