TurboTax vs an Accountant for your 2020 Tax Returns

Our accountant fulfilled his promise and delivered our tax return way ahead of the April 15th deadline. The bad news is that our experiences with our first accountant weren’t exactly positive. Since I’m a skeptic, I decided to conduct an experiment with our accountant. Even though I paid him $500 to file our taxes, I went ahead and prepared my tax return with Turbo Tax and compared the two to see if there was a difference.

Be aware that you must provide your accountant with an accurate set of books. What’s more, if your books are incomplete, and the accountant has to process things like receipts—this will drive your bill way up. Lastly, for a blend between the two services, you can fill out your return yourself but https://turbo-tax.org/ with the option to pay for live, on-demand help. You can upload the applicable documents, drop them off at one of H&R Block’s locations, or work one-on-one with a tax professional. The platform is laid out to be highly user-friendly, with many of the fields formatted in a questionnaire style.

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“The frustration that they’re experiencing when they’re trying to understand the tax code can be overwhelming for them,” she said. If you hire a CPA to do your taxes for you, then you just hand over your financial records and you’re done. When you use TurboTax software, then you are forced to commit more time resources to the process.

Despite majoring in electrical engineering, he spent a good portion of his graduate education studying entrepreneurship and the mechanics of running small businesses. All told, accountant #2 ended up saving us a significant amount of money because of his advice which made it worthwhile overall. However, it was upsetting that they made a careless mistake even though we were paying them $350/hr. However despite this mistake, accountant #2 did manage to find a few additional deductions that Turbo Tax did not find. In addition, they advised us to open up a SEP IRA which ultimately saved us a ton of cash.

When is having a CPA useful?

Their current packages include the free option, basic online assist, deluxe, premium, and self-employed. One of the perks of H&R Block for customers is its physical location. For those uncomfortable doing their taxes online, dropping off their documents at one of H&R Block’s locations can be an easy solution.

• Sometimes the descriptions are obscure and not well explained so I’d rather not take the risk.
• First off, unlike accountant #1, accountant #2 was always available to answer questions throughout the entire process so the tax filing process was a much better experience.
• TurboTax offers several packages, including a free basic package, live basic, deluxe, premier, and self-employed.

As a result, I didn’t have the mental energy to think about anything else. I also like the feeling of control knowing how all of the numbers are calculated in my return. Now that’s not to say that you shouldn’t trust accountants but in the grand scheme of things, no one cares about your money more than you do. If the idea of entering numbers and talking about dependents and deductions https://turbo-tax.org/should-i-use-an-accountant-or-turbotax/ makes you break out in a cold sweat, you might want to leave the preparation to a professional. I understand that as a practicing CPA, my heart lies in the good ole’ face to face interaction with a client. Getting down to the meat of their financial problems and creating a game plan for them to have more and more success but I see the easiness that comes with Turbo Tax.

Why Investors Use TurboTax

But, most people I know prefer to spend their free time on activities that don’t involve mastering the tax code. The preparation and filing of your return is a very operational job. You compile data, fill in the boxes, sign your return, and mail it off. There is potential for human error if you file taxes the old fashioned way, and for a small cost tax prep software eliminates most of that risk. By using this website, you understand the information being presented is provided for informational purposes only and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Nothing in this communication should be construed as an offer, recommendation, or solicitation to buy or sell any security.

In the grand scheme of things, the dollar amount in question was minuscule and simply paying the penalty would have been a drop in the bucket. But the problem is that if you admit any sort of guilt, then your chances of getting audited again go up exponentially. Arguably, using our accountant took more time because after finding the initial error, we went through his return line by line to check for additional discrepancies. In any case, once all of the data was ready to go, entering all of the numbers into Turbo Tax took hardly any time at all.