Since we’re on the subject of taxes: For those of you who use an accountant, what are the fees? I’m wondering if I should instead be using TurboTax (or other). I fully understand it will significantly vary if you own a business, rentals, etc. Just curious. DH and I spend about $700. I’m self-employed, from home, so file schedule C, but it is based on a professional service with very few business expenses other than the computer, supplies and professional fees. We decided to not deduct part of our home, to keep life simple. Other than that, we have a number of index funds and accounts, but nothing complicated. It is nice to just hand over all our information to the accountant, and not need to read all the forms and instructions, but I’m not sure an accountant is needed at this point. How long does it take you to complete the TurboTax forms? The same information has to be gathered in either scenario.
@kjofkw I’m not self-employed so can’t opine from that angle but it sounds like your self-employed status is pretty straight forward from a tax standing, as are your investments. To me, the collecting of info is the hard part but as you’ve stated, you are doing that part regardless. As far as actually doing the taxes yourself through Turbo Tax or similar software, it only takes a couple hours at most. For a simple return, a lot less. My kids’ returns take less than 1/2 hour.
I guess it depends on how much you value those few hours vs. the $700 spent. Perhaps you can try it online this year yourself before you hand things over to your accountant. The beauty of the software is it guides you step by step so you have the option of reading more on each step for clarity/background but don’t need to do so if it is something you understand or don’t have questions about.
My husband did his own, 30 years ago before he married me. No doubt they were very short. Kind of trivial. But doing ones own taxes isn’t the measure of being a true adult in life. Many people will always have an accountant or significant other do it instead. My kids provide for themselves, my oldest quite spectacularly. I’m good with that.
My accountant prepares our taxes and our adult kids’ taxes, as well as the returns for a couple pass through entities we have. He is also readily available for various planning questions throughout the year.
We’re billed something in the neighborhood of $1,000 per year.
Before I got married, I always did my own taxes. They were pretty simple and straight forward. I even was able to deduct moving expenses and do income averaging back when that was allowed. It was very helpful when I first started out, to lower my income so my taxes were lower in my 1st real job. Since we married, we mostly have H’s CPA do our taxes. I did our taxes two years in our marriage, one year when we bought a house and one year when we went on a trip and the CPA wouldn’t get them done before we left. The other decades we have paid for the knowledge and expertise of the CPA. They do depreciation on the rentals and all the schedules, K-1, etc. It has worked and kept marital harmony.
Our son does his own taxes. I have always handled the family finances, but DH does our taxes. I’ve always thought that if he goes before I do, I’ll have someone else do them. I don’t know why I have this aversion as I’m the one who keeps all the tax prep data/receipts/forms, etc. to hand over to him. His BD is 4/14 and he’s spent every single BD since we’ve been married doing taxes. He’ll be late to his own funeral.
That’s what I do, every year. I’ve known my CPA for almost 3 decades, and we have a good time catching up every year. The federal tax return is a walk in the park, the state returns are complicated (DW works in at least 2 states), we have a household employee, and I don’t mind paying him to look it all over. I had to explain backdoor Roth to him years ago; he mostly does business returns.
For most, taxes are relatively simple. Turbo tax or Tax cut will handle them fairly well. I did ours for years even with a simple consulting scorp. Once investment property and depreciation became involved I punted to an accountant.
I do my own taxes, DW is self-employed, we have rental properties. It’s not all that complicated once you understand it.
It got a little interesting a few years ago when the IRS changed all the rules for schedule E deductions. There’s nothing magic or arcane about depreciation. The beauty of the tax programs we have now is that they will track that from year to year for you, once you put the property into service you never have to think about it again.
We used an accountant once when we got our first rental. After I saw how it was done, I did it myself. And for years I did it with a spreadsheet. There are some forms that are pretty complicated to do without a program, like 6251 and 8582 (which is the one that pushed me to get a program), but even those aren’t impossible.
DS has taken over doing his taxes, although I think he and his wife use an accountant. DD… I can’t remember if I did hers last year, but she is pretty much in 1040ez territory, it takes about 10 minutes to do hers.
If I got hit by a truck, DW would be going to an accountant. She has zero interest in knowing anything about it.
And honestly, I don’t think doing your own taxes is some sort of “adult” test, any more than changing the oil in your car or replacing a plug in your house or whatever. If you have the interest/desire/knowledge/skills/time to do it yourself, then go for it, otherwise hire it out.
My kids do their own. It’s easier now with online forms or TT. I’ve never even offered to do theirs, it’s their job as wage earners and adults to get it done.
I did my own starting at age 16 with my W-2 from McDonald’s. Back in the days when you got your paper forms from the post office or library. After I started my first real job my colleagues told me of the wonders of Publication 17, which is still pretty darn good.
Now I use TT because it does the math for me, but I look over all the forms. It really helps me understand how the tax code affects us and what we’re paying and why. I wouldn’t take that opportunity from the kids.
We used to hire an accountant to do taxes. When they up the fee to over $2,000, I took it over. AMT is PITA but software takes care of that as NRE mentioned. As others have mentioned collecting paperwork to hand over is the hardest part. If you do your own tax, paperwork gets a bit easier since it can be less organized. Now, I just stuff receipts in a ziplock bag as I enter the number in the form instead of typing it all out for an accountant. Not to be political, but I am looking forward to taking the standard deduction in 2018. For us, it was the deductions that took infinite time. Without SALT deduction, it will be hard to go over $24K. We have no medical deduction or charitable since giving is done through a giving account. We could get a mortgage, I guess. I am running numbers for that.
My DH does our taxes (I help, but he does the bulk of it) . He has also does our kids’ tax returns, but last year he made them sit with him through the process so they could start learning, though they are pretty easy at this point.
"If you do your own tax, paperwork gets a bit easier since it can be less organized. "
haha. So true. Plus you can procrastinate to the bitter end if you wish.
What makes taxes complicated? For depreciation, isn’t there a table you can follow? For exercising options? I guess self employed gets complication to sort out business part or exercising options. If you have an unearned income, the brokerage firm provides everything you need. My D sat through with me once. When she saw how easy/mechanical it was, she lost interest.
I’m trying to understand the concept of deciding whether or not to “let” a 30 year old do their own taxes. Did I misunderstand that?
I think it’s more like “make” not “let”.
@Igloo, no, that poster says the son wants to do his own, so no “making” him is necessary. I’m just wondering if I have misunderstood that the son is 30 years old.
It gets complicated when your business entity rents the property and you allocate improvements either to the business or the property. At some point you punt and let the accountant handle the details. 
I don’t have an issue with my son doing his own taxes. He used to email with accountant’s assistant. He has moved so often that his Fidelity and Vanguard forms come to my house, and I would drop them off at accountants office. She would push him to get proof of insurance, etc. There were 3 years when he was paid in 2 states, so 2 state forms had to be completed, plus moving expenses, etc. charge was $150-200. While he’s a grad student, I don’t think it’s worth his time. Still, I kept my opinion to myself.
I’ve known my accountant for 25 years. He helped me with parents’ taxes and estate matters. He helped me settle with the ex-fiancé and sale of house. I’m self employed, but by now I come for appointment with all the figures done in the workbook. Anyway, I hope to get my part done this weekend.
DH and I do our tax returns together. I organize all the paperwork during the year and enter all the charitables in TT; Dh does the rest of the numbers. We’re a plain vanilla return with a pittance in self-employed income. He was an accounting major; I’m really organized. It works and we don’t kill each other. 
S1 (27) has someone do his returns, which is probably for the best because of stock grants, etc. S2 (almost 26) has done his returns the past two years. Used the online free filing version last year, though he had both W-2 and 1099 income in 2017, so he might need to use a different form this time around. We did their returns while they were in college since we also needed the info for FA applications, and they would sign them when they came home for spring break.