Tax Help

B-Guy

Recycles dryer sheets
Joined
Nov 30, 2021
Messages
256
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Spring Ranch
Right or wrong, I have prepared my taxes most of my life. The only time I didn’t was when we moved to a different state and had numerous tax/legal complications I needed help with. With that said, I would love to find a tax accountant with some legal savvy to answer questions from time to time. We live past the sticks and haven’t found this type of professional were nearby. Emails would be more than adequate with response times of a few days. Has anyone found such a person or business and how would one go about finding such a resource?
 
You're probably not going to find anyone good to accept that type of arrangement. Someone with that ability is going to be a senior partner at a CPA firm, or an EA with experience, and they're not going to want to go through the hassle of billing you on a per-email basis because their time is worth upwards of $250 an hour.

We actually have several tax folks here who answer questions for free. There are also some over at Bogleheads personal finance as well, although in both places you should vet the answers until you figure out who knows what, because non-tax pros also answer those threads with a variety of levels of accuracy.

You might try posting your questions here and/or there and see what sort of response you get.

The other option is that if you have a CPA firm do your taxes, they'll usually answer "some" questions for free as part of their service. Probably not anything requiring extensive research or modeling though, so it sort of depends on what sort of questions you have.

If any of your questions are state specific, you should probably find someone who practices in that state. State level tax stuff can be really odd / weird / obscure. I know Idaho's tax stuff pretty well, and I know tiny bits about a few other states, but I wouldn't try to answer anything even remotely interesting about a non-Idaho state level taxation question.
 
I remember when I did my taxes by hand, before tax prep software was available. I can't imagine doing that today.
I use TurboTax and I haven’t run into a question it couldn’t help with, either in Easy Steps, or Intuit’s TurboTax Support. Our returns aren’t extremely complex, but by no means simple either. e.g. Investments/cap gains, foreign tax credits, government obligations, QBI, EV tax credits, two state relocation, IRA distributions/Roth conversions, Social Security, RMDs, QCDs, etc. I’ve never needed a tax professional yet. And double checking here and/or Bogleheads has been very helpful as well.
 
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Right or wrong, I have prepared my taxes most of my life. The only time I didn’t was when we moved to a different state and had numerous tax/legal complications I needed help with. With that said, I would love to find a tax accountant with some legal savvy to answer questions from time to time. We live past the sticks and haven’t found this type of professional were nearby. Emails would be more than adequate with response times of a few days. Has anyone found such a person or business and how would one go about finding such a resource?
I had my brother, who had a tax prep business for many years. Then there were two sad events that brought me closer to future son-in-law, who took over his father's CPA business. So I went off each year for a nice drive to help him keep it going. It was in the sticks, as you say.

During tax season, say November through April, you won't find a local CPA who answers calls or emails for your important questions. The amount of customer data flowing through their business is incredibly large.

You will get some response and further attention on forums like this, and Intuit.

A tax preparer who is legal-savvy would be a rare find. A smart tax preparer will just send you to a lawyer for legal advice.
 
One year I needed extra help. I used turbotax and paid the extra fee to be able to ask a tax professional to help me with my return.

It worked great. I arranged an appointment with the person and we went through my questions via a virtual session on my computer. She was fantastic, and it was exactly the extra amount of help I needed.
 
Not sure how complex your returns are.
1. Like other's I use "tax software". Answers most of my questions.
2. Boogleheads forum.
3. IRS website. Contains everything. Just have to learn how to "read" their format.
4. I think OP, knows what to do. Just wants validation.
 
I do use Turbo Tax which has been a great tool, over the years. I have been using TT Deluxe but over the last few years, but I needed the additional functionality TT Home and Business offered. I did see the option to ask a tax professional, but was hesitant as I was unsure how capable they were. Worst case I'm out $60, but will keep them in mind. I hadn’t discovered Bogleheads forum, but it looks like a rich resource. SS’s website is great if I can find what I’m looking for clarification on.
 
Check out this thread and see the type of help you can get here on this forum.

 
This might sound a bit unconventional and comes with the caveat to double-check, but I’ve run several tax scenarios through ChatGPT and was impressed by the accuracy and detail of the results. While not perfect, it can serve as a helpful additional resource.
 
I remember sitting at the kitchen table with a pot of coffee, a bowl of cigarettes, a calculator, a legal pad, scratch paper, erasers, and duplicates of all the tax forms. I would fill out the initial forms in pencil, then carefully complete the final versions in ink before mailing them off. The "good old days," these were not. I started doing my own taxes back in 1975 and haven’t stopped since.
 
I remember and sitting at the kitchen table with a pot of coffee, bowl of cigarettes, calculator, duplicate of all tax forms and filling the initial ones out in pencil. Once done and then filling out in ink before mailing them off. Good old days, these were not.
Exactly!
 
I have always done my own taxes (with the help of TT). This year it will be somewhat complicated because of (reasons) so I decided to hire a pro last year to test the waters. I precalculated everything in TT to see the difference. When he sent me his results I owed 5k+ to the IRS even though I was sure I should be more or less around zero. Well, it turned out he forgot to include my estimated payments in his return. His fee was $200 but I decided to go back to TT.

It seems that sometimes accountants are as useful as financial advisers.
 
As a follow-up, through networking, I connected with a recently retired accountant and financial adviser who provided the tax guidance I required. His services were billed at an hourly rate of $240, with charges applied in 15-minute increments. I was concise with my short list of questions, ensuring that each was addressed quickly. His expertise proved invaluable, and I was able to receive the answers without exceeding the minimum billing increment. Despite his preference to limit his professional commitments to no more than a few hours per month, he was gracious enough to assist me with my inquiries.
 
Glad you found someone. For other people's information IRS P4012 is the guide for tax prep volunteers. It has more/better information than the instructions for the various tax forms and has helped me with a few of my own questions.
 
I have always done my own taxes (with the help of TT). This year it will be somewhat complicated because of (reasons) so I decided to hire a pro last year to test the waters. His fee was $200 but I decided to go back to TT.
The only time I didn't do my own taxes was the year we moved from another state and had sold three properties on top of the farm income, plus other taxable events. I too precalculated to see if I needed more deductions. When I finished with TT, I wasn’t confident I did everything correct so I filed an extension and had an accountant do my taxes that year. The accountant saved me about $800 over what I came up with using TT, but charged me $1250 to prepare my taxes. Is TT flawless, no however they do a mighty fine job of preparing your taxes.
 
Thanks for sharing. I took a look at IRS P4012 and it looks lake another comprehensive resource.
Pub 4491 is also good. It does more to explain the law while the 4012 sometimes is more about how to enter data into TaxSlayer. Both of these pubs do skip a lot of more complicated topics because the scope that the IRS mandates for VITA programs avoids anything like depreciation, net investment income tax, additional medicare tax, foreign earned income, casualty loss, etc.

If your state has income tax, they may have a similar pub. Here's the one for CA: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/help/free-tax-help/5130.pdf
 
Is there a general 2024 tax year help thread where I could ask a question about state income tax and VMFXX? Don't really feel comfortable starting a new thread from scratch. Thanks.
 
Is there a general 2024 tax year help thread where I could ask a question about state income tax and VMFXX? Don't really feel comfortable starting a new thread from scratch. Thanks.

I don't think so, but you could ask here or start a new thread.

If you do ask your question, you probably would be well served to mention the applicable state.
 
As a follow-up, through networking, I connected with a recently retired accountant and financial adviser who provided the tax guidance I required. His services were billed at an hourly rate of $240, with charges applied in 15-minute increments. I was concise with my short list of questions, ensuring that each was addressed quickly. His expertise proved invaluable, and I was able to receive the answers without exceeding the minimum billing increment. Despite his preference to limit his professional commitments to no more than a few hours per month, he was gracious enough to assist me with my inquiries.
I'd be curious if you were to submit the same questions to the experts on here would you get the same answers for free. We really have some smart people here, Cathy63 and SecondCor521 are the first to come to mind, they really know their stuff.
 
I don't think so, but you could ask here or start a new thread.

If you do ask your question, you probably would be well served to mention the applicable state.
Ok. Let's try here in this thread.

I'm a little shy in mentioning my state, but it's my understanding that a portion of VMFXX is invested in government obligations that do not require state income taxes be paid (at least in my state). I've looked to see what percentage of VMFXX was invested in those obligations for 2024 and the information I've found says the full year's info won't be released until this August.

Guess that means I need to file an extension every year?

What do others do?

Should I be putting that cash portion in VUSXX instead?

Thanks.
 
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