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Tax preparation is one of those places I've found that going to a person rather than a website actually really pays off. TurboTax et al handle simple cases fine

Tax preparation is one of those places I've found that going to a person rather than a website actually really pays off. TurboTax et al handle simple cases fine but if you have a complex situation (I own a home, owned a business, etc etc) having a person who's in the room with you and can directly ask you questions and interpret data that you've got on hand is invaluable. My tax preparer is something like $250 a year and reduced my liability in a very tumultuous year from about $20K to about $9K by understanding what I actually had going on and helping to work through it.

FireBeyond 5y ago
And an actual tax preparer, not a script reader like H&R Block. The first year I moved to the US, I had a whole bunch of things going on. Buying a house, working from home, buying a hybrid car etc., getting married. I had no real idea about the tax system, so saved all our receipts etc., and went to H&R Block. "So what do you want to claim?" "What can I claim?" "What do you mean?" "Here's a bunch of receipts and I can tell you all the details." [vaguely confused look] "Let's go through the app." And I watched as basically she transcribed our most basic information into their in house version of something akin to TurboTax. I could have done that myself. I complained. And did, eventually, get someone there who knew how to not be a glorified transcriptionist. And then the next year found someone who had knowledge of their own.
- eropple 5y ago
  AFAIK, TurboTax does sell access to a version of their software for the script reader, too. ;)
- chubot 5y ago
  Yup, that happened to me. I paid something like $250 for a tax preparer who just entered the info into TurboTax. It hit a weird case and she didn't know what to do. Eventually I looked up the actual tax code and told her what to do. As far as I remember it was about splitting the cost basis over multiple years. I owned some weird stock where that came up.

FireBeyond 5y ago

And an actual tax preparer, not a script reader like H&R Block. The first year I moved to the US, I had a whole bunch of things going on. Buying a house, working from home, buying a hybrid car etc., getting married. I had no real idea about the tax system, so saved all our receipts etc., and went to H&R Block. "So what do you want to claim?" "What can I claim?" "What do you mean?" "Here's a bunch of receipts and I can tell you all the details." [vaguely confused look] "Let's go through the app." And I watched as basically she transcribed our most basic information into their in house version of something akin to TurboTax. I could have done that myself. I complained. And did, eventually, get someone there who knew how to not be a glorified transcriptionist. And then the next year found someone who had knowledge of their own.

eropple 5y ago
AFAIK, TurboTax does sell access to a version of their software for the script reader, too. ;)
chubot 5y ago
Yup, that happened to me. I paid something like $250 for a tax preparer who just entered the info into TurboTax. It hit a weird case and she didn't know what to do. Eventually I looked up the actual tax code and told her what to do. As far as I remember it was about splitting the cost basis over multiple years. I owned some weird stock where that came up.