ADVERTISEMENT

OT: Tax prep

cavalot

Nebraska Football Hall of Fame
Oct 3, 2003
17,159
15,883
113
How many of you do your own taxes? What do you use?

My wife and I have been using a cpa for several years. Mainly because along with our W2 jobs I have a small LLC so I wasn't sure how to make those things jive.

Already have to pay in a chunk. It would be nice to at least save a buck or two on the prep work.
 
I’ve always “done” my own. I use the term loosely because the sites I used really do most the work, i just plug in numbers. I’ve used TurboTax for the last 15 or so years, mainly because they didn’t charge me to use it because I was active duty. But their prices have gone up the last few years. I went with H&R Block this year. It cost me about half the cost and I paid less in taxes compared to what TurboTax was saying I should. My parents use Dave Ramsey’s service. They didn’t have any gripes with it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cavalot
CPA and former tax preparer here. Just do my own, but I use H&R Block online. Used to be really cheap, but it has gone up recently. They also charge you per form on some things, so I assume a Schedule C business will cost a little more. I think I paid like $80-$90.
 
How many of you do your own taxes? What do you use?

My wife and I have been using a cpa for several years. Mainly because along with our W2 jobs I have a small LLC so I wasn't sure how to make those things jive.

Already have to pay in a chunk. It would be nice to at least save a buck or two on the prep work.
I have done my own since my divorce in 2017... Freetaxusa.com makes it pretty easy and the most you will pay is just over $100 and that is for auditing assistance and professional chat help
 
  • Like
Reactions: cavalot
I’ve always “done” my own. I use the term loosely because the sites I used really do most the work, i just plug in numbers. I’ve used TurboTax for the last 15 or so years, mainly because they didn’t charge me to use it because I was active duty. But their prices have gone up the last few years. I went with H&R Block this year. It cost me about half the cost and I paid less in taxes compared to what TurboTax was saying I should. My parents use Dave Ramsey’s service. They didn’t have any gripes with it.
You would be shocked at what I paid last year.

I was leaning toward TT but maybe I will look at H&R.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: HuskerInCarolina
CPA and former tax preparer here. Just do my own, but I use H&R Block online. Used to be really cheap, but it has gone up recently. They also charge you per form on some things, so I assume a Schedule C business will cost a little more. I think I paid like $80-$90.
I paid 10 times that last year. My wife had a little more complicated stuff due to her company being bought out and her stocks being paid out in full. So we took a major hit on income. I just think we have been paying too much for what we basically know going in. We're going to pay up in April!

Just wasn't sure how to tie the W2 to the LLC or if they would both be seperate. Probably could just chat with an advisor on any one of those services.

Thanks
 
Paid 149 to have a tax expert so like through Intuit. I always take out an extra 400 a month fed and state total to get a return and pay for my summer trips
 
Did my own before turbotax. Now use turbotax but it sounds like I should shop around for a better price.
 
I paid 10 times that last year. My wife had a little more complicated stuff due to her company being bought out and her stocks being paid out in full. So we took a major hit on income. I just think we have been paying too much for what we basically know going in. We're going to pay up in April!

Just wasn't sure how to tie the W2 to the LLC or if they would both be seperate. Probably could just chat with an advisor on any one of those services.

Thanks
Pretty simple. I use TT. Years ago it was professional. Now it's home and business. You can do up to 5 returns per subscription. So you would want to do an LLC business return for each of your businesses first and file your 1065. Take the results of that and then do your personal return including your 1065s and personal w2.

I thought about trying h&r block to see if they'd be cheaper as others have stated, tt prices are starting to become uncomfortable compared to what they were
 
I tried turbo tax back in the day but somehow screwed up multiple things - namely my backdoor Roth Ira’s. No idea what I did wrong but it said I owed like $25k - ended up going somewhere else and I had to pay in $2k - which is where I like to be. Haven’t tried again since.
 
How many of you do your own taxes? What do you use?

My wife and I have been using a cpa for several years. Mainly because along with our W2 jobs I have a small LLC so I wasn't sure how to make those things jive.

Already have to pay in a chunk. It would be nice to at least save a buck or two on the prep work.
TurboTax home and business. I started out with a cpa in 1987 then started doing my own after finding he had made multiple errors requiring me to amend the return. I did them with paper and a calculator back when I had 13 employees and switched to TurboTax then. I ask a CPA that used to work for us for advise every now and then. He’s rerun my returns several times and never found any problems. My return is normally 60+ pages long. TurboTax’s system is all in the cloud now I do NOT like.
 
Last edited:
Pretty simple. I use TT. Years ago it was professional. Now it's home and business. You can do up to 5 returns per subscription. So you would want to do an LLC business return for each of your businesses first and file your 1065. Take the results of that and then do your personal return including your 1065s and personal w2.

I thought about trying h&r block to see if they'd be cheaper as others have stated, tt prices are starting to become uncomfortable compared to what they were
I had one issue with TurboTax when I had a computer crash but fortunately I had retained the CD case that had my license # on it. One other thing I had an issue with was amending a return back 2 years. They don’t support their software past 2 years so I had to have the CPA that used to work for us in another business refile the return. It was caused by a keyboard glitch that I had the misfortune to discover when doing a later return.
 
I tried turbo tax back in the day but somehow screwed up multiple things - namely my backdoor Roth Ira’s. No idea what I did wrong but it said I owed like $25k - ended up going somewhere else and I had to pay in $2k - which is where I like to be. Haven’t tried again since.
This is what sent me to a pro as well. I could not figure out what to tell the software so that it would accurately reflect the back door Roth. Still use that pro but it’s more spendy than I want.
 
Jeez, apparently I'm getting prison raped. $1500 for CPA to do the LLC (handful of rentals) and regular return for wife and my regular jobs. He will meet anytime non tax season for free business advice but we just don't make as many moves as we used to. Has referred several clients to my wife's practice.
 
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT