Tax advisor?

[tessaduncan]

Often there is a tax preparer (not a CPA) doing the actual work in the CPA's back office ;-)

 

[LongPrime]

^ The last time I used a CPA firm (associate CPA is a farmer friend of 30 years), for son's Canadian income in college (fellowship, scholarship, teaching, stipend) they used a Canadian firm for the Canadian portion and the US portion was sent to India but was delayed because the Indian people quit inmass to work for another outfit and a new outsourced firm had to be found and vetted.

 

[LongPrime]

What tax program are you talking about?

Doesn't matter. The questions they ask are all the same. The look and feel are different between programs. I've tried just about all of them but settled on the cheapest, the group that sold out to Intuit, and the one I started in DOS, dot matrix, green monitor.

 

[2B]

If your "barely itemizing" you could try to bunch your itemized deductions every other year and take the standard deduction in the odd year. Move charitable giving to be generous every other year and tight in odd years----give in advance in December one year and push off into January for the year not itemizing. You can do the same thing with state taxes if your doing estimated payments.

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I bunch deductions and plan on itemizing every other year. I pay two years of property taxes in the itemizing year (the big tax in Texas) and make any charitable contributions then. I have a small charitable trust at Fidelity Charitable Trust. They will let you start with (I think) a $5,000 contribution. Gifts to qualified charities (they need an IRS charity number) can be made as low as $50. I use this for almost all of my charitable giving. I put a few years of donations in when the year is right. The donation date is when it is deductible and not when sent to your intended charities.

I think you need to learn to do your own taxes. The federal and state programs may cost you $60 or $70 every year but you will get a better feel of your situation. If you have enough in Vanguard, you can get it for free. the amount you are currently paying is a bargain but you probably spend as much time filling out the paperwork as it would take to do it yourself. If your life is as simple as you say, the CPA isn't going to find you special deductions.

 

[2B]

^ The last time I used a CPA firm (associate CPA is a farmer friend of 30 years), for son's Canadian income in college (fellowship, scholarship, teaching, stipend) they used a Canadian firm for the Canadian portion and the US portion was sent to India but was delayed because the Indian people quit inmass to work for another outfit and a new outsourced firm had to be found and vetted.

Having your tax info sent to India is scary. If that can't get your identity stolen, I don't know what else to try. Your info would have to be accessible by a countless number of people.

 

[RE2Boys]

Often there is a tax preparer (not a CPA) doing the actual work in the CPA's back office ;-)

Count on this the majority of the time. His/her time is too valuable to be doing data entry work. For the last eight years, I spend three months as the back office tax preparer (a great retirement job). Most folks don't submit their tax info in an organized way, even though they are given a booklet to fill out, so I spend my day sorting, data entry, flagging missing data, assumptions made, etc.

Of course, the returns are fully reviewed by the CPAs before they are willing to put their signature on the return.

Do 100-150 returns each year. And still have not done my own personal return!!

 

[Trawler]

I use independent CPA who in their younger years was with the IRS. When we first went to him he audited several prior years and found a couple grand we could amend and get back. That paid for several years of his fee of $350. Every year I calculate the taxes and he would do his work and all but one year the prepared return tax bill was lower than may calculation by more than his fee. Starting in 2012 the year I fired we meet in the fall to discuss strategy to reduce lifetime tax best way to take income from our investments and maximize ACA subsidy and no additional charge.

 

[Jimbo125]

OK, I am a CPA and I prepare individual returns. Our firm prepares about 1200 returns a year.

There are two types of people that use our services. The first is the type that have a somewhat complicated return. Maybe have a lot of investment activity(sales, etc), maybe a rental property or stock options. I have seen a lot of people mess up their returns by failing to properly prepare report any out of the ordinary type of transaction. Penalties for forgetting the Alt Min Tax or even assuming the IRS is correct if they send you a notice can cost more than our fee.

The other type is the type that wants convenience. Typically they have Schedule A & B and little else. They come to us for the convenience. We have a minimum fee of $300. We don't discourage the "Convenience" client, but they do pay for that convenience.

The tax programs like TurboTax or TaxAct have gotten better over the years. They used to be horrible. But in order to make them easier to use, they have caused them to be very time consuming. You have to go through multiple question and answer interviews.

We tell our "Convenience" clients that it is OK if they want to prepare their own returns. We suggest they come back every second or third year for us to do their return at which time we will review their prior returns as well.

As for advice, you are more likely to get advice from a CPA or CA than you are a basic Tax Preparer. Just don't expect that you are going to pay $100 for Tax Prep and also get free advice.

 

[Brat]

Jimbo125 sounds to me like a professional who provides a service that meets a client's needs.

 

[MRG]

Having your tax info sent to India is scary. If that can't get your identity stolen, I don't know what else to try. Your info would have to be accessible by a countless number of people.

This is not unique, I know of many major businesses that out source this type of work to India or other 3rd world countries. Your medical records, financial data, etc. much of the work handled 'over there'. These are US or Canadian companies, so I'm sure their audits cover all the same privacy policies we know.
MRG

 

[pb4uski]

Often there is a tax preparer (not a CPA) doing the actual work in the CPA's back office ;-)

Perhaps, but the return is reviewed by the CPA and the CPA signs the return as the preparer and takes responsibility for the return.

 

[pb4uski]

Jimbo125 sounds to me like a professional who provides a service that meets a client's needs.

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