Thoughts on Turbo Tax vs Accountant

[JuneCleaver]

We are trying to decide if this is the year to break down and use an account rather than doing our own taxes with Turbo Tax. Anyone here switch to an accountant and find that you could have done the exact same thing for alot less money?

Opinions wanted!

June

 

[OhMari]

I think if you don't have a bunch of odd things, I would stick with Turbo Tax. My husband inherited $1200 one year, and I had the hardest time with it and my husband talked me into going to H&R Block. Having kids in college had me a little confused too that year, so it was nice to talk to someone about it. I would say once every 5 years you should maybe go to some one, just to make sure you aren't missing anything.

I would like to say, where was that child credit tax 10 years ago, when my 4 kids were little. We sure could of used it then. Now I only have 1 that can get credit for.

 

[barkley]

i've always used a cpa. best money spent.

my cpa is up to date on all the tax laws and has pointed out some very obscure ones that have resulted in thousands in tax savings. the added advantage is he is able to look at trends in my income and advise me how i can do things resulting in less tax liability for the following year.

 

[Ava83]

We use a CPA also, every year we discuss options and go with an accountant.


I like having someone else do it, my Dh has a company car and the miles would be enough to mess either of us up.

 

[clarabelle]

We have used Turbo Tax for several years.
The first time we used it we had an accountant check it and he said it was OK!
We don't have a very complicated tax picture -but we do have plenty of deductions.
It works for us

 

[tiggerlover]

I would think if you did not have a complicated return that Turbo Tax would be the way to go. I have used them online for a couple of years, but we don't have anything out of the ordinary.

 

[JuneCleaver]

Ours aren't that complicated...couple of kids, a couple of dogs (wish they were deductable!) and mostly the usual stuff! One of these days things may get more complicated with inheritance, etc but not yet!

I just always get squirrelly this time of year...just don't want an audit!

June

 

[Dan Murphy]

Ours is somewhat complicated, switched from an accountant to TT some years ago, works great.

(not to be considered tax advice)

 

[clarabelle]

I remembered something I wanted to add.
I was told by an accountant that the time to seek their advice is BEFORE tax season. When you are making a big purchase or a big change. There may be a way to do it to pay less taxes.
Say buying or selling a house or rental property etc....
That is more crucial than having someone do the return itself

 

[mickeyfan2]

We always use a CPA (not H&R block). The money is money well spent. A good CPA can prevent an audit.

BTW - Last year a guy I worked with used Turbo Tax. He thought he was getting a $10,000 refund. He was getting PD for the job and did not enter it correctly. He ended up only getting about $1000 in the refund. If he had not talked to me and I told him what the law was (he did research it and I was correct), who knows what would have happened if he send it in. An CPA would have caught that right away. His first question to me was why did Turbo Tax not ask me about that. I did not know.

 

[PlaneJoy1]

We used TT, then switched to an accounted (who checked our TT return - no errors or omissions) for a couple of years. Last year, our CU had a deal with TT so I compared line by line our CPA entered tax return and what we entered into TT and found nothing different other than the amount. So, to me, our refund increased by ~$300 b/c we didn't pay the CPA.

If we had a difficult situation or complicated return, I would go back to the CPA.

 

[Bob Slydell]

Ours aren't that complicated...couple of kids, a couple of dogs (wish they were deductable!) and mostly the usual stuff! One of these days things may get more complicated with inheritance, etc but not yet!

I just always get squirrelly this time of year...just don't want an audit!

June

Sounds like you'd be fine with TurboTax -- it's pretty easy to use, walks you through the whole process and, if you're really concerned with an audit (nothing you've mentioned would raise a red flag, BTW), you could purchase TT's Audit Defense: http://intuit.taxaudit.com/intuit/taxauditdefense/default.asp

 

[va32h]

I use Turbo Tax - our returns are fairly simple - we don't itemize, for example. But I do have my Schedule C for my business and a couple of 1099s for freelance work.

 

[Chicago526]

DH and I use TT and love it! (well, I love it because I do the actual taxes!). We itemize since we own a house, but our deductions are noting out of the ordinary...interest, property taxes, and charity contributions are about all we deduct. I don't think we will ever have a situation that would be complicated enough to want to go to a CPA, with the possible exception of an inheritance.