FAQs
- What advice would you give a customer looking to hire a provider in your area of work?
Most of us are feeling the financial squeeze of the past few years. It is tempting to save money wherever possible. I think that's a great idea but beware of false economizing. Home use tax preparation software seems inexpensive. Did you know that most tax preparation companies will offer to review any tax return done on home software, even the software manufactured by their own company, for free? Remember, these are the same companies, that mandate they spend as little time as possible preparing your return and as much time as possible selling you services that you don't need. Why would they offer to review a previously completed tax return for free? Home software is by nature, as general as possible and, by design, as conservative as possible. They need to be as general as they can so that they can condense the millions of variations on any seemingly similar tax returns yet allow their software to address what are really unique problems. They are as conservative as they can be designed because they are backed up with an offer, sometimes included, sometimes at a nominal cost, to represent you at an audit. That costs real money and they absolutely do not ever want to make good on that offer. The best way to avoid the possibility of an audit is to avoid any deduction, credit or any maneuver, including perfectly acceptable and legitimate responses, allowed on your "home prepared" tax return. National chains are notoriously conservative for the exact same reason. These chains at least have live individuals, albeit often minimum wage, poorly trained individuals, who review your return. They know that the most mediocre tax preparer on incredibly outdated software, can find enough legitimate deductions on home software prepared returns for you to pay them to re-do the return. More often than not, they will find enough overlooked deductions that they can charge you to amend the return, pay their fee, and still get you a bigger refund. Does that sound like a way to save money?