Apples & Oranges

This comic is a perfect illustration of some very common misconceptions regarding tax returns and tax preparers.

 First is the cost of tax pros. Tax work is by no means a commodity that can be comparison shopped based on price. Anyone who chooses a tax preparer based on the lowest fee is, for lack of a better word, an idiot. As I have often reminded people, which is a better move: paying H&R Block $100 to have your tax returns prepared, or paying someone like me $1,000, when the total taxes on my returns are $10,000 less than on the Block returns?

No two tax returns are exactly the same. I get this one a lot. Why are the taxes higher for one person, while his/her co-worker or neighbor, who supposedly makes the same amount of money, has a completely different amount? Such comparisons are ridiculous. There are literally dozens of things that can make tax returns of co-workers completely different, such as expenses and dependents. In my 27+ years of tax work, I have never seen two tax returns exactly the same, even for the same people from year to year. Tax returns are like snow flakes. This also goes for the cost to prepare tax returns. We have never charged flat rates and have based everything we do on the amount of time it takes us because everyone has very different issues to deal with and different levels of organization of their records.

It's also all too easy to criticize investment ideas after the fact, with 20/20 hindsight.  Of course, anyone who continues to follow the lead of someone who consistently picks losers is too stupid to feel sorry for.

KMK

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 4/09/2003 12:31:00 PM Send this post: