Do you guys use an accountant?

[FREE866]

I'm sure the answers will vary on this.


I've used the same accountant for years for me, my partner, and my mom. Hes very good with returning emails and I like him. That said, the three returns are extremely simple--no real estate, no trading, etc I'd do it myself on TurboTax , but I just like the idea of having a point person and security of knowing it's being done professionaly. Charges us $225 per return.



Today, I asked how much he will charge for an additional return for my sister. He writes back their fees are changing due to costs and new client returns are $500 and the existing returns he does for us will now be $300 per. I find this unacceptable. A 30-40% increase is too much.


For those with relatively simple returns, do you do TurboTax or walk in to like an H & R Block type place? if so, whats your opinion ?


thanks!

 

[Sojourner]

I don't use an accountant or tax pro for any of my personal financial/tax matters. I went to a tax pro once, many years ago, when I was unsure of how to handle a particular tax situation. He charged me several hundred bucks but did a good job, so I went to him again the following year. I discovered a major, glaring error in his work that year (which he sheepishly then corrected), yet he still charged me the same amount! Ever since then, I have done it all myself and made it a priority in my life to be self-sufficient when it comes to my personal taxes.

 

[Philliefan33]

Our return is not exactly simple and I do it with TurboTax. I volunteer with AARP TaxAide (as do a few others on this site), so the training and experience I’ve gotten there gives me extra confidence. But for a simple return, TT walks you through step by step.

If you’d rather have someone else be the point person, look for a TaxAide site near you. The service is free. You do not need to be an AARP member; the program is meant for seniors and low- to moderate income taxpayers. As long as your return is “in scope” (meaning the volunteers have been trained to handle every aspect of your income and deductions) and the return can be completed in the allotted time, no one can be turned away.

 

[Ncc1701]

My accountant died a few years ago and I went to TurboTax. It is awesome. They even have a feature now where you can get a live CPA on your screen to help you answer any questions and they will review the accuracy of your return. I chose this option for the first two years but now I'm so comfortable with TT, I don't need that option anymore. Doing taxes on TT is actually FUN believe it or not

 

[Sunset]

My taxes are complex, I do them myself with H&R block. (rental, options trading, dividends, interest, foreign income, mutual funds, capital gain & losses, self employment income and expenses and depreciation, etc).

I also do some relatives taxes with the same software.

OP - get the software and do your taxes, it's easy you just type in the form information or auto download it from the brokerages. If you can type on the computer you can do it.

The second year you do it, the software will import the basic information, so the work is 1/3 of the first time. And the software tracks the current values for most stuff (like if you had depreciation).

 

[Happyras]

Someday, I may submit our return ourselves. I use TurboTax Premier and help our kids with their filing, but use our accountant. As you said, it is nice to have a point person. I enter all into TT, and send it along with backup uploaded to her secure web portal.

Ours is complex for now with installment sales on business assets, rentals, etc. We aggregate rentals to allow for some tax credits which I would not understand enough to do myself, but should. I like to have her signing the doc, and we typically pay $300 or so, but I do most of the details. Like I said, I may just file it myself in a few years after certain income streams are gone.

 

[donheff]

Ours are moderately complex. We use Turbo Tax. The last year we used an accountant (about 10 years ago), I ran our taxes thru TT using the same data we sent him. After a few hiccups I got them to match. Since then or situation has simplified but still involves 1099s, 1099-Rs, and a K1.

 

[Car-Guy]

Heck, I haven't even tried to balance my checkbook(s) for well over a decade. No need for any accountant here.. I use TT for my taxes and a couple of spreadsheets for things I like to track... Of course I'm just a poor old country boy. End of story.

 

[Sanstar]

We use TT. Except for the year we hired a CPA. Six months after filing we received notice to come to local IRS office for an audit. Nothing came of it but I wondered, if after years of DIY tax return, the CPA prepared return triggered an audit.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

My brother the CPA told me years before TT was even invented not to blow money on accountants for tax returns.

I use the most basic edition of HR Block for the federal return. For state, I created a spreadsheet in about 30 minutes that does all the math for me (mostly simple arithmetic based on federal AGI) and I enter that into the pdf forms downloaded from the state's tax website. I expect that spreadsheet to be useful going forward with minor revisions to reflect changes in my state's income tax law.

 

[COcheesehead]

My taxes are complex with real estate, sale of a business, all kinds of fun stuff. I do them myself in TurboTax. The longer you do your own taxes, the more you understand and the more you can plan.

When I used an accountant I had to do all the work anyway and he typed into something like TurboTax.

 

[aaronc879]

I go to H&R Block and pay at least that much but my taxes are a little more complicated due to self employment. I don't think $300 is too unreasonable but $500 for a basic return is too much.

 

[FlaMariner]

Turbo Tax for the past 11 years.

Never going back. Saves $$$ and is easier than using a CPA...plus, you learn stuff.

 

[mpeirce]

I used a CPA for a number of years.

Basically, I was planning on cashing in on a significant (to me at least) amount of options and wanted to make sure I didn’t make any blunders with such sums of money on the line.

This worked out great for a number of years leading up to that and afterwards too. His prices kept creeping up, but he always earned his keep pointing out various ways to optimizes things.

When we left the area, it seemed like a good time to do it myself with TurboTax. I had been using TT to do my parents taxes and it has worked fine.

There are still times I miss having an expert to bounce ideas off of, but honestly, it’s just not that complicated these days.

 

[jollystomper]

I used spreadsheets up through 99, then tax software since then (H&R Block for last 6 years). We do not do real estate, and the most "complex" items we have had are stock options and DW's independent contractor teaching/translating. No problems, and I agree with FlaMariner that I have learned more about taxes doing it myself. We were audited one year due to the amount of charitable contributions we claimed, but we had receipts for everything so it was not a problem.

 

[TripleLindy]

The only time I’ve hired a CPA was when the company I worked for went public then private again. I couldn’t figure out the conversion or cost basis of my equity. I’ve had some moderately complex returns that I’ve done with TT. I’m not a huge fan, though. In trying to simplify the process, they’ve made it harder to understand, IMO. I liked it better when you could see the forms behind the data entry templates. Now, I can’t tell what entry is going where and trying to backtrack once completed (and having paid the fee) is kind of a pain. But I’ve also been doing my own taxes since the days of going to the post office to get paper forms.

 

[ownyourfuture]

For those with relatively simple returns, do you do TurboTax or walk in to like an H & R Block type place? if so, whats your opinion ?

My mother & younger brother both have fairly simple returns & have used the local H&R Block to prepare them for the last 5 years. Seems like they were both around $225 last year. I expect they'll be higher this year. If that's true, it wouldn't be a big savings for yourself, but might be an option for your sister instead of the $500 you mentioned.

As for me, I manually prepared my own until 1999. I decided to use an accountant, & even though my return was fairly simple, the bill was $180.
As luck would have it, the following year, Fidelity sent me a free copy of TurboTax. Never had a problem, even though my taxes became more sophisticated, MLP's - covered call options, etc.

Don't remember why (possibly the price) but I switched to H&R Block software 4 years ago and I'm very happy with it.

 

[SJ1_]

I'm sure the answers will vary on this.


I've used the same accountant for years for me, my partner, and my mom. Hes very good with returning emails and I like him. That said, the three returns are extremely simple--no real estate, no trading, etc I'd do it myself on TurboTax , but I just like the idea of having a point person and security of knowing it's being done professionaly. Charges us $225 per return.



Today, I asked how much he will charge for an additional return for my sister. He writes back their fees are changing due to costs and new client returns are $500 and the existing returns he does for us will now be $300 per. I find this unacceptable. A 30-40% increase is too much.


For those with relatively simple returns, do you do TurboTax or walk in to like an H & R Block type place? if so, whats your opinion ?


thanks!

Have been using TurboTax for years now it works for us

 

[Alan]

I used TT for 23 years of the 29 years living in the USA. Now that we are back in the UK I use a dual qualified tax preparer because of the added complications of being a USC living overseas and dealing with a Double Taxation tax treaty along with the usual complexities.

 

[Happyras]

OK, I just remembered one instance where TT interpreted the tax law in a different way than the accountant pro software, for our business situation it paid well to have that interpretation. So, yes TT for simple returns, not so much for complex situations.

 

[mrfeh]

Except for the last 2 years, when our returns became complicated due to ownership of an LLC, I've always done our own taxes.

For straight forward situations as described in the OP, tax software is sufficient.

 

[Dtail]

I use H&R Block Advisors for my mom's returns, which include an irrevocable trust.
I could probably do it myself, but just easier for me.

 

[foxfirev5]

Been doing paper tax forms for myself and/or family since I was 12 years old (1968). I used free Fido Turbo Tax for a couple of years until I started having problems with the free offer. Again this year I get a free offer for premier, yet when I look at my cart I see a $20 discount. What a joke. Anyway I can crank out a couple of forms and schedules in less than 30 minutes and mail them in. I simply use the E payment system and mail them the forms with 1099R's attached for withholding documentation. Always owe them a little.

I am NOT going to pay to file my taxes. It's a matter of principle to preserve my principal.

 

[Morgan22]

When I first started filing taxes I did it by hand on paper forms. When I learned of TurboTax I switched over. I use the download version now.

I tried the online version but you can't look at the forms until after you file. (May have changed since I last used it?) And the price always ended up higher than if I had just bought the CD/downloaded.

Every year after xmas it seems that Amazon has a TurboTax deal that makes the price tolerable. But I did luck out and ended up being able to download for $5 via Fidelity offer this year.

One of my kids uses OLT and the other uses freetaxusa. They say they are free for fed and minimal cost for state efile. You could try both to try out. You don't have to pay upfront from what they have told me.

 

[Cobra9777]

I've always prepared our tax returns myself, manually at first, then using TurboTax since the mid-1990s. I don't really do this to save money. It's mainly to understand the process well enough to enable effective tax planning, especially during ER. I also prepare DMIL's return and I help the kids from time to time. Our return was somewhat complex when I had NQSOs and RSUs at Megacorp, and later with rentals, and especially when we sold the rentals.

There were a few years when I did an expat assignment for Megacorp. I had a tax equalization agreement under which Megacorp paid all my incremental tax associated with the assignment. In return, they received the benefit of my US FTC and engaged a Big-4 accounting firm to prep all returns (US and foreign). It was an EXTREMELY complicated process involving multiple hypothetical returns and lots of reconciliations. One year, my US return was 95 pages long. I counted. There was another 100+ pages of supporting documents and reconciliations. This process went on for 3 years after I retired due to option exercises that were deemed to be foreign income and thus Megacorp got some benefit from my giant FTC carryforward.

Anyway, that was long ago and far away. I've been doing our returns with TurboTax since that ended a decade ago. Everything is fairly simple now. Planning for future Roth conversions and RMDs is the most complicated aspect. I'm glad I do the return myself so I can model that with some confidence.