Great comment joe. I could quibble with some minor details but overall it’s pretty accurate. People who aren’t afraid of their taxes should at least try to do them themselves. It can be overwhelming for some, but it’s certainly worth a try if the alternative is paying much more than a few hundred bucks to a professional preparer.
I do want to comment on this though:
[quote=joec]
If your return is relatively simple, I don’t see why anyone would need to hire a CPA honestly as most major tax deduction legislation would be hard to miss by Turbotax.[/quote]
The likelihood of a tax professional understanding legislation better than the people at Turbotax is extraordinarily slim. They hire scores of CPA’s to review legislation and make sure their software is consistent with the law. About 20 years ago I actually found a flaw in their software (one of the professional versions, they produce two professional tax software programs in addition to Turbotax) and they fixed it. (It’s a slight exaggeration to say “I” found it. One of my tax managers found it. He went to work for them the next year. As far as I know, he’s still there.) They have professionals working with incredibly narrow focus (like people dedicated to nothing but the home office deduction, or as my former employee was doing, just on ACE depreciation). They might miss something, but the chances are really slim that a professional tax preparer would catch something they don’t.
