Did You Do Your Own Taxes or Use a Tax Pro?

Yes, I realize this post is a couple months late for many. You can use it next year!

As tax season is close to an end, I wanted to share this tool from Dave Ramsey about whether you should do your taxes yourself or hire a tax pro.

It takes you through a series of questions and then recommends a solution.

My guess is that the simpler your taxes are, the more likely you'll get "do them yourself" and the more complicated they are the more likely you'll get "hire a pro."

I took the test and it came back with "hire a pro." Which is good since I've used a CPA to do my taxes for years. Why? There are tons of reasons why you should hire a tax pro, but here's one great reason from the end of Dave's survey. It's a quote from someone who hire a tax pro:

"I tried online software with no luck. The difference between the return I would have received and what your ELP was able to get for me was almost $3,000!"

Now it's worth mentioning that this tool is being used by Dave to identify those who may want/need to use a tax pro and then refer them to someone in Dave's network. Not saying there's anything wrong with that, but just want to be sure everything is fully disclosed.

That said, there's no doubt to me that my CPA saves me more in time (many, many hours) and money (by catching things I don't even know about) to pay for her fee. So it's well worth it to me.

How about you? Do you do your own taxes or does someone do them for you?

Comments

[HouseofG]

Yeah, that "tool" feels more like a client funnel. Some of those questions are too much, like whether you think you made any errors on past returns and the only "no" option is that you used a pro in prior years. And the more substantive questions probably don't dig deep enough into the person's scenario. They could simplify it to - "Do you need to file a return? Yes, you need a tax pro!".

[DIY$]

I do my own (with TurboTax) but I really don't have anything that complicated with my taxes since all of our investments are in retirement accounts and I only have one source of income. I can definitely see the value when we start to have a lot of other taxable investments.

Speaking on the other side of the Dave Ramsey ELP (endorsed local provider) program, I have a friend who was an ELP for investments and paid a very hefty monthly fee to be on the network (thousands per month). We met with an ELP for real estate and he disclosed that roughly 1/3 of his commission went straight to Dave Ramsey's company if we used him.

[Ted Smith]

I use Tax pro, well I deal with charted accountant and he is all liable for my taxes and statements.