Tax Return

I've used TurboTax for businesses for over 10 years. It forces me to keep up to date on my tax situation. I'm self-employed and have income producing property so I need the business version.

My husband always paid a CPA $500. I did our taxes last year with Turbo Tax for $60ish (had to get a premium version due to our situation...I was self employed, he had investments, etc., but we got a discount through USAA). The CPA would just send forms to fill out that asked all of the same information as TT. A CPA is great for tax planning purposes and maybe if you have a very complex tax situation, but for us, TT was fine.

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A CPA is great for tax planning purposes and maybe if you have a very complex tax situation, but for us, TT was fine.

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How long did it take you to gather the information and prepare the return? I'm curious as to how much value you place on your leisure time? As a CPA I try not to claim we are indispensible in preparing tax returns. I try to explain the value of my services in non-monetary terms, such as saved leisure time, confidence in completeness and accuracy, and ability to make more than the yes or no decisions that commercially avaialable software require.

It is the last that truly separates the good CPAs from software. The software relies facts and limited circumstances for determining how evens will be reported on your tax return. A good CPA can identify circumstances that software developers did not anticipate to determine more favorable outcomes than the software might from the same set of facts.

I often recommend people take the route you have, but at some point many get frustrated with the process, or they realize that yes and no aren't always the only answers, and they end up paying to have their returns prepared anyway.