Focusing on federal taxes, that means finding offsets for 17 to 20k worth of income. I'm not sure you've answered the question about the value of a professional. Was there a point where you said, e.g.,

"Huh! TurboTax never told me I could deduct what I spend on CDs and music downloads because I listen to music when I walk dogs." or

"Huh! TurboTax never told me I could write off my entire mortgage payment as a home office because I have a laptop and wireless Internet."

Or something similar.

No, the point was that doing them at home with software meant we weren't claiming the deductions we should have been claiming. Hiring a professional solved that issue.

And.....you're being a snot to me because......?

You deserve it?

My accountant has been amazing. I got back a thousand bucks last year when I expected to owe.

This year with only Dis and unemployment I'm not sure if I'll be using them, but (my) Alex still will for sure, and I'm still considering it, what with the extra deduction for unemployment (thanks stimulus bill), and for consistency's sake.

You can find them at www dot clinecarroll dot com

Really? OK then. I will shut up. I'll stick to more mundane topics.

The thought of having to admit to a stranger how bad I am at keeping records is unappealing. Especially since other than donations that I don't keep particularly good track of, I doubt there's much I'm missing as our income is entirely W2/1099-int based and the most complex deduction we have (until the dependent arrives) is a mortgage payment. So there's not a lot of room for them to find hidden deductions to pay for themselves.

NA, meet Strangler Lewis. I thought you'd met before...

For those who use a CPA, what is the cost, generally?

There was a radio show yesterday talking about new regulations from the IRS for requirements to do returns for other people. One of the tips given was to never use a person who's fee is a percentage tax return. That seemed like a very self obvious thing to me.

Yes, before you were born, young'un. Well, her husband, anyway. Same thing. One flesh and all that.

I didn't mean to be snotty. I'm all for not paying extra tax. However, by all appearances, TurboTax--or at least the version I use--is extremely thorough, down to asking you about potential deductions or credits that it says are not common. Of course, if it's not asking questions about things that I can document, then I'm missing out.

So, I remain curious about what matters, if any, the accountant said, "You know, they left this out of TurboTax, but you can deduct that, and it's not an audit flag."

I know a tax preparer who worked that way. He gets out next year.