I think I should be able to do my own taxes, would you suggest a program?
You could certainly use TurboTax or TaxAct. Both are user friendly. However, it’s not ideal to do it yourself as a business owner.
TurboTax and similar tax software is perfectly fine when you don’t own a business. The tax code is narrow at this point, when it’s just you reporting the income from your employer. When you become a business owner the tax law expands widely and a world of tax strategies and deductions are available for the taking. Tax software will try to help you take advantage of it sure, but the designers of the product place usability above tax savings. The tax code is pretty technical, and the tax software takes the path of least resistance.
You’ll save $300+ by doing it yourself, but from what I’ve seen you will most likely miss out on $300 to $16,000 in tax savings.
On the other hand, there are a lot of tax shops that don’t take the time to work with you on bringing down your taxes. I’d say the majority are like this. I have one bookkeeping client who has their own tax preparer (they aren’t using us yet as their tax pro). They could be saving $15k+ this year, but their tax preparer just doesn’t give the client the time to assess the financial situation.
Accountants, tax preparers, and bookkeepers are not created equally. Some of us have designed our practice to look out for our clients, others just want to get the job done quick and move on to the next client’s tax return.
So should I hire a tax accountant or what?
Yeah, that’s our biased yet honest recommendation. More importantly though, go find a firm like Wellness Fi that does what we do for cheaper or who you like more than us.
We do things differently here at Wellness Fi. We are among the very few firms who are a one-stop shop of bookkeeping, tax preparing, and advising. A firm like ours loves to make your life easier by reducing your workload and we are honed in on reducing your taxes.
