Tips on Choosing a Tax Preparer

Legal Tax Angles:

How to Save Taxes Without Going to Jail

These tips were offered at a financial conference and no attempt was made to provide a comprehensive checklist or to discuss these suggestions in any detail. 

  • Ask for referrals from friends, relatives and others in your trade or business.
  • For a simple return, you don’t need an expensive tax preparer.
  • Ask how many years the individual preparer has been preparing tax returns. The more the better.
  • Look for a preparer who does a lot of tax work rather than other work like bookkeeping, auditing or investment services.
  • Not all CPAs or lawyers are tax experts.
  • Some enrolled agents are better informed on taxes.
  • If you use a big CPA or law firm, they are likely to give your return to an assistant.
  • If you own a business, you need a preparer who is available all year long
  • Avoid any preparers who promise to get you a refund before they have seen your tax data
  • Look for a preparer with experience in preparing returns in your industry
  • If a tax preparer is willing to inflate or invent deductions to save you some taxes, it's not worth the risk to you.
  • Tax preparers work for as little as $10 an hour to as much as $150 an hour and the price they charge isn’t always a measure of how good they are at preparing returns.
  • Don't expect a tax preparer to give you a lot of free tips on how to reduce your taxes. Tax planning is like financial planning. It takes time and it's not free.
  • A more extensive discussion of the differences between accountants, lawyers and financial planners is included in my article on How to Choose a Tax Advisor.

Vern Jacobs

Copyright, 2003

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Caution:  While the information in this web site is believed to be from reliable sources and is believed to be accurate, it is not intended to represent legal, tax or financial advice for any reader of any part of this web site. Due to frequent changes in the laws, new court cases and differences of opinion among professional advisors, readers should not rely on this information without the help of a qualified professional advisor.