• In case most of you have not noticed, I made changes to the donation amounts as well as the durations for all of the paid membership levels. Things are winding down here, and this seems to be the most prudent way to deal with the "end of life" period of this site.

    Contributor level members - $10 per 30 days
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    Benefactor level members - $25 per 30 days
    Endowment level members - $50 per 30 days

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  • Responding to email notices you receive.
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    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

wich is better

I intend to use a private accountant this year.
I've used H&R Block for several years and finally realized that I'm paying them a fair amount (which increases every year) to do nothing but play fill in the blank.
They are not tax advisors, only tax preparers, and can only offer the most basic suggestions when you are making obvious errors in leaving out a potenential deduction. With the proper software you can equal what they do on your own. That is true at least concerning the offices here, and I can only assume that the same holds true throughout the company.

Last year, with the additional schedules and associated fees my cost to prepare my taxes broke $200.
If I'm going to pay that sum to have my taxes done I expect to get more in return that simply have someone fill in the answers in a program. An acountant can advise me on how to better manage and possibly lower my tax liability and with that I feel I'm getting far more value for my money.

It really depends on how complicated your filing is. The more that is required, the more you can benefit from private assistance.
 
I've always done them myself. Depending on your situation you may be able to do a 1040EZ which takes about 5 minutes to fill in a few blanks. I had to do the 1040A this year since we have a kid now, but that was pretty easy as well.

Even if you try it yourself, you can always decide to have somone else do it later if you feel lost or uncomfortable.
 
I've thought about going the personal accountant route, since I have a few loans, do some private contracting (1099), some W2 work, and a mutual fund. any idea on how much personal accountants usually charge?
 
Clay Davenport said:
I intend to use a private accountant this year.
I've used H&R Block for several years and finally realized that I'm paying them a fair amount (which increases every year) to do nothing but play fill in the blank.
They are not tax advisors, only tax preparers, and can only offer the most basic suggestions when you are making obvious errors in leaving out a potenential deduction. With the proper software you can equal what they do on your own. That is true at least concerning the offices here, and I can only assume that the same holds true throughout the company.

Last year, with the additional schedules and associated fees my cost to prepare my taxes broke $200.
If I'm going to pay that sum to have my taxes done I expect to get more in return that simply have someone fill in the answers in a program. An acountant can advise me on how to better manage and possibly lower my tax liability and with that I feel I'm getting far more value for my money.

It really depends on how complicated your filing is. The more that is required, the more you can benefit from private assistance.
Click to expand...
I work at H&R Block so this really caught my attention. First and second year employees are just preparers however they take many hours of schooling to work there. It is not just fill in the blank unless it is a simple return which is what most of the newbies get handed.

If you have a complicated return or many schedules to file then you would need to see one of the employees that have taken the extra schooling and exams to prepare those returns.

Several accountants and CPAs work for H&R Block during tax season. We have the training to advise our clients on all types of deductions as well as helping them choose retirement funds and investment options.

Now with all of that said, they charge way too much to do your taxes. You can go to irs.gov and find sites to do your taxes on-line for free.
 
sorry I haven't replied, but thank you all. I tried to do them my self to see if I would have the same results as a pro, and turned out that I'll be getting 184.47$ more with a pro doing it...I'm happy on the turn out, and hope all is good for all of you as well.
 
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