IRS Form 8828 - Recapture of Federal Mortgage Subsidy

quote:

---

Can I do them separate?

---

No, the Form 8828 is an attachment to Form 1040 detailing the computation of a specific amount of tax. It gets reported on Line 60 with the code "FMSR".

The accountant you hire should be someone you are comfortable with because you should plan on using him for many years, and you will share all sorts of condfidential personal information with the accountant over time.

I can't really tell you how much your return should cost to prepare since the return preparation process is not uniform for all accountants. You could hire a firm because you are comfortable with a partner who will do little more than manage the preparation process and review the final product. The actual preparation will be performed by an employee with less experience and lower hourly billing rates. You could hire a sole practitioner who will do the actual preparation at a higher billing rate, but hopefully with greater efficiency due to his experience.

My opinion is that your return will require no less than 4 hours of professional time, but more likely about 6 hours. The accountant will have to review your prior returns to enable him to properly analyze the documents you provide him for the current return. He will have to enter all information that is not importable directly from the source. Once the information is entered the tax preparation software will remember the information in subsequent years, and reduce the amount of information that must be entered saving time and costs for you.

The wild card in your return is the rental property. The better organized you are the less time it will take for the accountant to enter the information for the rental. But the first year return will require the accountant to input the appropriate information for depreciating the property and any assets that that have been segregated from the building.