For the first time in a number of years, I had a professional do my taxes. I’d been a TurboTax Online user for the past 6 years, but got a referral from a friend and figured I’d try them out. The parking situation wasn’t ideal, and the wait to be seen was long (over 3 hours for me), but the size of the refund I got back made it worthwhile. If you don’t mind a wait (or the fact that they’re cash-only), visit Newby Tax Service at 6315 Windsor Mill Rd, Gwynn Oak, MD 21207.
Rates are $150 for single filers, $300 for businesses. The charge for e-filing is an additional $80.
I’ve been using a professional accountant for taxes since I started my business, because that first year I had sold a house, bought a house, moved 600 miles, my wife started university again, and I started a business. There was no way in HELL I was going to do my own taxes that year. 🙂
Now my guy has it down to a science. I get a packet mailed to me at the end of december with all of my values from last year. I go in, look up and fill in the blanks for all of my values and notes for this year, then take that to my meeting with the guy. He punches in my numbers into their fancy dancy tax software, asks some questions, answers some of mine, and boom I get a number. (Where I always end up paying, and paying a lot – but that’s a different gripe with the tax code – not my accountant.) Very painless.
On top of that he also has all of my estimated tax slips made up, with a sheet on what to pay when, and even includes the envelopes with the proper addresses on them so I don’t have to even think about it. I just write a check, put a stamp on and drop it in the mail every quarter.
It costs me about $370 or so I think, but that includes the e-filing and the other services that save me a lot of time. Definitely more cost effective than doing it myself.
Whenever I join the ranks of the self-employed, I’ll definitely be looking to an accountant like yours to handle that stuff. I should probably have done so earlier. I’m encouraged that what you paid to have your taxes done is so close to what Newby Tax Services charges.