this is too late for you if you filed today (april 17). But however you did it, something to keep in mind for next year is that you should NEVER pay a CPA more than a couple hundred even for a complicated return.


Don't forget to consider Enrolled Agents. They are generally less expensive than CPAs and have more concentrated knowledge of taxes. The EA exam covers only taxes and lasts two and a half days. The CPA exam is a little longer, but the tax section is just a fraction of the whole exam. EAs can represent you before the IRS just like CPAs and attorneys can.

That being said, there are complicated returns, and there are COMPLICATED returns. I don't consider a normal 1040 with a Schedule A, B, D, and an 8606 to be complicated. On the other hand, I won't spend hours sorting through disorganized records in shoe boxes for free, or spend hours hand-transferring active traders' stock trades onto Schedule Ds for the same price I'd do a Schedule D with 5 or 10 transactions.

Angelbuggy, E.A.