Taxes poll.

N

Number30FTO

Well-Known Member
I usually do my own taxes. Simple Turbo Tax with standard deduction.
Is it worth using a airline tax specialist? Sorry for the general question but hoping trigger a discussion that I might learn a little from.
 
Even for those that can itemize (or where makes sense to) for most doing it yourself you will spend almost the same amount of time doing them. This is because you still have to get all your records together and fill out the form to give the tax specialist, that is what takes so long. They simply take the numbers you write down and plug them into a software program as well. It may even be turbotax or taxcut.

For people who have a lot of weird situations (and owning a home and being married doesn't classify) I can see the value in going to a tax guy.

An alternative, you can pay a tax guy to do the taxes and next year assuming your situation is the same use a program. Just follow by example.

If you don't own a home you will really have to embellish to come close to the standard deduction.
 
I let someone else do it.
Not because I can't do it myself...although I do itemize and try to get as much as possible back in deductions. More because I just don't have the time (or the desire) to do it myself. To me, it's worth $150 to have someone else spend hours filling this stuff out and ensuring it's all correct. Nothing overly complicated about doing your taxes...but it is time consuming and boring. YMMV!
 
I do my own with the H & R Tax Cut software. I have done my own for so long it doesn't really bother me to do it. If I was self employed or had lots of properties or trusts etc. I would have them done for me.
 
My wife used to do all our taxes. She's got a fifty pound brain. Now she and I own a business that rents a building to another business she owns, plus some other weird stuff....way over either of our heads. We have a local accountant do them.

If I paint my company's name on the side of my boat can I call it a business expense?:)
 
Cruise said:
I let someone else do it.
Click to expand...

Same here.

I don't even use an 'airline tax guy'. I found a kickass accountant that has our data in one stack, tax law in the other and "minimum tax liability" mixed in her coffee.

With the correct data, airline tax law is a non-event.
 
I don't use an airline guy... but I do have a CPA do it.

With investments and itemizing, it just makes it easier and is worth the money.

I tried turbo tax last year and it was great until I got to my investments breakdown. Stop the bus! haha.
 
I don't have any odd things like rental income or a home business, so I just use Turbo Tax. I went to a tax guy last year, and all he did was take the stuff I already had organized and put it into tax software. I saved myself about $50 this year doing it myself. I just keep myself organized during the year rather than having to rush and get stacks of paper and info organized in January.
 
I use TurboTax online and do it myself. My brother is an accountant but after checking against his work with TurboTax it ended up resulting in the exact return amount. I began to trust TurboTax and save him the effort.

I don't own a home so I can't itemize my deductions. The standard deduction is greater than anything I could ever claim as tax deductible.
 
Had a pro do it this year because i made enough and i wanted to see how a pro does it. This year I'm back to an FO again so I'll be doing my own.
 
I lived in Puerto Rico for the first five months of 2009 and haven't the slightest clue how that fits in. Gonna have to get it done professionally.
 
I'm doing my own using Turbo Tax.

Sites like:

www.ezperdiem.com

... help me find any deductions I might not get.

Apparently the gov't thinks the cost of doing business in a lot of cities is much higher than our per diem might allow for. Go figure.
 
EZ Per diem also has pages that show you exactly how to entire your deductions. Makes doing the taxes crazy easy. You'll spend waaay more time getting your deductions together and writing them down for your tax person that you will entering the data.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top