Are accountants prohibitively expensive in the US? I don't use any tax software myself in the UK - I just pay an accountant $250 once a year and he does it for me (using some software I presume.) It's not really on my radar as things worth trying to automate or use software myself for, let alone building my own software! I'd have to be able to do it in just a few hours to be cost effective.
That's about what those franchise tax prep companies charge (Liberty Tax, Jackson Hewitt, etc).
I found out my parents used one of these places last year, and they charged them about $350 for a SIMPLE tax return. It looked like the goal was to charge about $50 less than the eventual refund, and also push the "get your refund right now!!" scam (i.e. take a high interest loan for the refund amount).
This year, I did their taxes and mine too (separately), using FreeTaxUSA.
You also have to trust the accountant, and the accountant is not liable at the end of the day anyway.
If you are a W-2 employee, even with having to file a Sch 1/2/3/B/D/etc, it shouldn’t take more than a couple hours. And you get to know you did it right.
Of course, if you don’t enjoy reading tax instructions, I highly recommend parting with a couple hundred dollars and letting someone else do it.
> Are accountants prohibitively expensive in the US?
No, they're not. Obviously cost will vary based on complexity (self employment, side-hustles, stock options etc) but for the most part a basic return by an accountant would be in line with what you're paying.
At that price point, your accountant is just charging you to do the data entry into Turbo Tax or equivalent. It's more work to coordinate, and and provide all the info, and costs more.
> At that price point, your accountant is just charging you to do the data entry into Turbo Tax or equivalent. It's more work to coordinate, and and provide all the info, and costs more.
People in this thread are talking about literally writing their own software to do it. Half an hour to collect up my payslips and email them to an accountant for $250 can't possibly be more work and cost more?
The idea of paying someone $250 when the government already has the data is ridiculous. Accountants are accessible to some, but we shouldn't need to pay someone when the government can do the calculations.
The government really doesn't have the data. Do they have cameras in your home detecting whether or not you paid for more than 50% of your child's living expenses?
He'll just have to take your word for it, and send that in to the IRS. He won't be liable for it if it's a lie; you will. So what's the difference to you telling the IRS directly?
And no, checking a box "I did not have any income besides my tax-withheld salary [_]" and filling in an integer "I have [_] dependent children" seems like something most people could do on an IRS web page without having to buy software or pay an accountant every year. (And if you tell them when the kids were born the first time you do this, they could carry them over year to year and age them out automatically when they turn 18, and then you wouldn't even have to do that any more unless and until some exception occurs.)
All these pro-status quo comments sound so weird, like desperate apologetics for the world's most needlessly complicated system. Are you all just finding it impossible to conceive of there being a better way than The American Way, or what's the reason?
