Do you do your own income tax return

Camper6

Well-known Member
Does anyone do their own tax return now or do they pay someone to do it for them?

Do you use a paper return or do you use tax software.

I do my own with tax software. I can't imagine doing a paper return anymore.
 

Nope!

I do a rough estimate for my own curiosity then send the documents to a CPA and have him prepare and file the returns for me.

If he retires I will probably start doing them myself.
 

I've been using the same CPA for years. Because I'm self-employed, I pay my taxes quarterly so I don't have a big bill at the end of the year.
 
Well, since I am a CPA (license is inactive since I retired), I have always done my own taxes. Been using turbotax for a long time, plus I have excel spreadsheets to help with the process when we also had businesses. Things are a lot less complicated these days, so who knows.
 
I've used H&R Block software for years. This year, I E-filed in late January, and had both the Fed and State refunds in the bank by mid-Feb. H&R, or TurboTax are the best ways to go, for most people, IMO....minimal costs, easy to do, and accurate....so long as you enter the data correctly.
 
I go to a tax preparer, he charges me $70 and I'm fine with that. He uses tax software and files electronically. I like figures but am dumb when it comes to tax stuff. My favorite saying is, "Being smart is knowing what you're dumb at". It has always worked for me.
 
You don't have to file if you don't owe taxes. Many people file just to get back what they paid in. If they would stop having taxes withheld they wouldn't have to file.

That's what my tax preparer said to me, so I stopped having taxes withheld. He told me that as long as my net income is less than my bracket and I don't owe taxes, I'm fine not filing. Last year I sold some stocks so I rather have him file just to make sure I'm okay and within my bracket.
 
I did my own taxes for many years when I had a simple return. Then I inherited a stock portfolio from my parents. It's too complicated now, so I pay a CPA to do them for me, and regard it as money well spent to free myself from the complexity and anxiety.
 
I did my own taxes for many years when I had a simple return. Then I inherited a stock portfolio from my parents. It's too complicated now, so I pay a CPA to do them for me, and regard it as money well spent to free myself from the complexity and anxiety.
Great idea. I do my own taxes but now and then I feel like I should take the load off and let someone else do it. And that extends to everything like paying bills and other mental chores.
 
Turbo tax paired with Fidelity. Takes maybe 20 minutes. From there file electronically another 2 hours and the filing is accepted with less than 1% chance of being audited. Less than 10 days I got the small amount sent to my credit union.
 
CPA for the last near 20 year due to international work. Our paperwork is about 2" thick and normally with all the back and forth it is near to June/July before we complete taxes.

I am thankful for a good CPA.

That may change after retirement once we get comfortable after afew years.

Our CPA fee is well worth it vs the potential issues & losses and to stay clear of any international bulloney from Nigeria..... She has saved us money and potential IRS issues when MegaOil has made mistakes in our Taxes.

We always had/have her take care of the kids taxes as the incremental cost was minor.

But that's just us....

Lifes A Dance And You Learn As You Go...

gamboolman...
 

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