I feel bad. I'm not sure how much of it is from feeling like I made a mistake in going to the accountant and how much is from pissing him off (although he says he's not upset), but I do feel bad.
I've never used an accountant for my taxes before. Well, that's not entirely true--I hadn't used one for my main return before. This particular accountant filed a revised return for me last year, due to a deduction I hadn't known about before, one that I got from my Mom's estate but only learned about after I filed my original return. This year, there was one last deduction from her estate, and I wanted it done right, since the deduction is quite large. It was worth a few thousand dollars to me, so I didn't want to just trust it to TurboTax like I did with my taxes in the past.
So I sat with the accountant a few weeks ago, but he didn't give me the most positive feeling. Even so, I let him go ahead. In the meantime, since I had TurboTax anyhow (for doing Marc's taxes), I went ahead and entered my info into it. It even knew what to do with a form K-1 and a 1041 from an estate (which is where the deduction is coming from).
When the accountant finally gave me my results, he said that I was being clipped by the AMT. On that, he and TurboTax agreed. Damn AMT. I sure don't make the kind of money that thing was supposed to be aimed at, but that's another story.
Where the accountant and TurboTax disagreed was on the amount of the refund I'm owed. On the state tax side, they're very close, but on the federal side they're very far apart. TurboTax's numbers were much, much higher. By thousands. So I thought about it briefly and then told the accountant to give my papers back. I told him that I meant no offense--and he said he didn't take any--but it's too much money to leave on the table. I'll re-run the numbers in TurboTax to be sure, and then I'll pay TurboTax the extra $30 for "audit defense," since this will be a big refund year. With that, I'll file it with TurboTax.
The only reason I went to the accountant was because his firm had handled the estate. So I felt like they'd be the best ones to handle my taxes with the piece that came from their estate work. Sadly, something's not right.
I just feel guilty. Like TurboTax is the bane of the accountant's business, and I just rubbed salt in their wounds. I guess I should have just stuck with the program in the first place.
4 comments:
Interesting situation. Hope TurboTax is right, although I have my doubts. As for TurboTax and their ilk being the bane of our existence, it's really not that bad. The fact is most people's returns are simple enough that a piece of software can do it. The personal returns I do save my clients enough to warrant the extra cost, which is exactly why you decided to go to one as well.
Interesting comment about AMT as well. It definitely catches more people than was originally intended.
You may be right, Neil. I'm going to go step by step through every item and make sure I enter it all into TurboTax, in case I missed anything on my first run-through. I figure their guarantees and the "audit defense" thing should give me some protection.
Also, the one piece I didn't mention is a bit of unease with the accountant. That stems from things like my having to correct him on the Roth IRA limits--and his then getting back to me to say he researched it and came to the same conclusion. His not knowing something so simple was one of a few things that made me worry.
Anyhow, I do hope this works out okay!
Besides, they'll always need accountants for things like estates, corporate work, etc. Plus, rich people need the help to find some safe ground! :) So I'm not worried for the profession overall!
I had the exact same experience a few years back. Not only did I have to pay the accountant but he cost me $500 more than what the software said I owed. I never went back to an accountant.
Eek! I agree with everything you did. I would have been in the exact same boat.
Not knowing the Roth IRA limit is quite worrisome to me.
We just fired our financial advisor. I feel bad too. Even though I know it was the right thing to do.
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