It's not the household income that matters, it's the complexity of the return. I'm early retired and live off of investments, dividends and rental income. My accountant charges about $700, the same that he charged back when I was a law partner making close to seven figures. It's definitely easier to just drop the paperwork in the mail and pay the money and then deal with turbotax or whatever. Plus, in my case, the accountant allocates a portion of the cost to the operating expense of each rental property so in the end it practically costs nothing. And like and earlier poster said, I never actually see the accountant, I just fill out a questionaire and send in some paperwork and that's it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every year I swear I'll get an accountant, so following with interest.

Every year life intervenes and I end up doing it on Turbotax the weekend before. We file in two states, have 4 LLCs, pension distributions from an international organization, two investment properties, plus all the usual wages, dividends, interest, donations, etc.

Sounds like you just enjoy paying taxes. TurboTax will only take you to the basic of basics for deductions.

This is PP. I think what you say is true--we are likely overpaying. But they are done as of this minute and I won't have to think about taxes for many more months.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every year I swear I'll get an accountant, so following with interest.

Every year life intervenes and I end up doing it on Turbotax the weekend before. We file in two states, have 4 LLCs, pension distributions from an international organization, two investment properties, plus all the usual wages, dividends, interest, donations, etc.

Sounds like you just enjoy paying taxes. TurboTax will only take you to the basic of basics for deductions.

Sounds like your accountant enjoys helping you cheat on your taxes, if they’re finding you additional non-“basic” deductions besides the ones you can easily find for yourself in TurboTax.

I dislike how Intuit lobbies Congress to keep tax filing as complicated as it is, but I also like only having to spend $80 or so preparing my taxes every year.

I take the deductions I am entitled to take. My accountant is trained to Interpret the tax law and help his clients. Why don’t large corporations like GE and apple use turbo tax and employ their own tax professionals?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every year I swear I'll get an accountant, so following with interest.

Every year life intervenes and I end up doing it on Turbotax the weekend before. We file in two states, have 4 LLCs, pension distributions from an international organization, two investment properties, plus all the usual wages, dividends, interest, donations, etc.

Sounds like you just enjoy paying taxes. TurboTax will only take you to the basic of basics for deductions.

Sounds like your accountant enjoys helping you cheat on your taxes, if they’re finding you additional non-“basic” deductions besides the ones you can easily find for yourself in TurboTax.

I dislike how Intuit lobbies Congress to keep tax filing as complicated as it is, but I also like only having to spend $80 or so preparing my taxes every year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every year I swear I'll get an accountant, so following with interest.

Every year life intervenes and I end up doing it on Turbotax the weekend before. We file in two states, have 4 LLCs, pension distributions from an international organization, two investment properties, plus all the usual wages, dividends, interest, donations, etc.

Sounds like you just enjoy paying taxes. TurboTax will only take you to the basic of basics for deductions.

I'm a in house CPA (I don't do individual taxes, just corporate). I use Turbo Tax for my personal taxes. What gives you this impression? I'm always curious where people come up with these things.

$150is turbo tax with audit option.

634k income
Several rental properties, mutual fund dividends, a few stock sales, tax loss harvesting, and a k1. The most time consuming part is gathering everything. Turbo tax takes 1.5hrs.

I moved to TT because one year I did TT in parallel to our CPA and came up with the same results. Why spend nearly $800 when I can spend a fraction of that?

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I only pay my CPA $160 (my DH and I file married but separate returns).

Why separate returns? Do you have kids? If so who claims them?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every year I swear I'll get an accountant, so following with interest.

Every year life intervenes and I end up doing it on Turbotax the weekend before. We file in two states, have 4 LLCs, pension distributions from an international organization, two investment properties, plus all the usual wages, dividends, interest, donations, etc.

Sounds like you just enjoy paying taxes. TurboTax will only take you to the basic of basics for deductions.

If you use the appropriate TurboTax package, it includes all of the deductions PP would need, as long as the information is entered correctly. It is true that if you use their lower level packages, they don't handle the more complex tax situations. You need to pay for the appropriate package. But your CPA will charge you more for a complex return than they would for a simple one, too.