TAX GUY
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2014
Filing taxes is mostly an exercise in filling in the blanks from the various documents you get. If you work, you get a W2. If you have investments/bank account you get forms relating to interest & dividends. If you sold some investments, you will get a form for that as well. If you collect SS, you also get a form for that. Paying a mortgage, there is form showing the amount in interest paid. I think some people are afraid to do their own taxes thinking the IRS is going to come and arrest you if you are off by $5 in your return, but that isn't how it works.
One year when doing my taxes manually, I made some sort of math error and got a letter from the IRS showing the error and the correct amount. Assuming you pay the tax they indicate, the issue was resolved and none of us went to jail !!!
No one should pay hundreds of dollars to some accountant if you have basic sources of income/expenses during the year. If you sold a business or have complicated depreciation calculations, then paying someone to help would make sense.
Pretty bold of you to assume the IRS or state DOR is always accurate. I have an example of what a client is going through, right now for tax year 2023. When the returns were efiled, they were rejected because their SS numbers already showed on a previously filed tax return for the same year. They are now forced to paper file. No big deal, just an inconvenience. They just received a notice from the state DOR stating they corrected their tax return to reflect the increased health care penalty (for NOT having proper health coverage). That penalty is almost $2300, EACH. The problem is, their paper filed return hasn't been processed yet, and they DO have the proper coverage and indicated as such on their return. They also have proof from the provider showing the proper coverage for the year. However, without paying "some accountant" hundreds of dollars, they should just pay the $4600, because the DOR said they should? And for what it's worth, they have "basic sources of income/expenses".
But hey, if you'd rather pay an extra $4600 instead of a professional for their knowledge and experience, I understand.