Penny wise, pound foolish
I'm sure almost all tax pros would take exception to the insinuation behind this comic. While it is normally the case that we can help our clients reduce their taxes by much more than our fees, that isn't always the case.

I have long had some clients who like to use TurboTax (TT) to do rough drafts of their returns and in lieu of using our organizers. While most of the time, my tax figures are several thousand dollars less than what TT had, that hasn't always been the case. I can recall several cases over the past few decades where my taxes were several thousands of dollars higher than what the clients came up with because of some major mistakes that would absolutely have triggered IRS audits, plus much higher additional taxes and penalties.

As I have always said, there is no better example of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) than with tax software, especially when used by the general public.

The client in this comic should realize that $225 is a small price to know that his tax return has been prepared correctly and he won't be receiving any nasty-grams from IRS based on the stupid errors he made on his self-prepared return.



- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 1/10/2006 07:32:00 PM Send this post: