Certified Public

Certified Public

Can someone tell me what the advantages are of using a certified public accountant to file your income taxes?

versus just doing them yourself via TurboTax? I can see if you own a lot of property and some of your property is rented out. Or, you own your own business or a self-employed salesman, where you have several write-offs. I know someone that is getting a lousy $20 federal tax return this year, and had to pay out $300 to his accountant. Now that is stupidity. Is there something I'm missing?

I agree with you that most tax returns are relatively straight forward and many people would save money by doing their own with TurboTax. But there are several tax matters that the average person would not understand, and there may be deductions and credits that the taxpayer qualifies for that they are not aware of. My dad did his own on Turbotax for several years, then one year he went to a local CPA and the CPA found a signficant tax credit related to education I believe that my dad had missed out on. He was able to file an amended return for the previous year as well as take the credit for the current year and ended up around $2,000 better off if my memory serves me correctly. So as you stated if a person has complex transactions such as rental properties, lots of investment transactions, or are self employed, etc. they may be better off with a CPA. You are risking not paying taxes on something you should or overpaying due to a lack of knowledge if you do not hire a CPA.

And the $20 return you mentioned above doesn't matter. It is easily possible that the CPA found deductions your friend did not know about and saved them from actually having to pay in taxes. Some people do have to pay in at tax time.

Accounting jobs, in particular Certified Public Accountants jobs.

Certified Public

Tagged with: a • h • p