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Photo by: herzogbrMy old man used to tell me, “Hank, you want to find yourself a CPA that will walk you RIGHT UP TO the door of jail, but not let you go in.” I think that’s pretty good advice - take what you can, when you can (legally) because the Government is not going to point it out if you missed it.
Tax season is quickly coming upon us, and there are a handful of things to ask yourself when drilling through this question, right? Well, not really. I think it is a pretty basic formula. It is almost like a job application that you’re hiring for. Look around, ask your friends, and keep an ear to the ground. CPA’s are NOT that expensive. I have a guy that charges $100-$150 to sort through my pages and pages of stuff I get sent in the mail, and magically comes out on the other end with a refund.

But Hank, how do you know he isn’t screwing you over and taking your money?

Well, I’m not stupid, I know the GENERAL amount that I should be getting (or paying) based on my salary, my house, and what I’ve got invested elsewhere - So maybe he is not getting all the break and discounts I can account for, but that is partially on my part. The facts are these:

- He is taking $100-$150 to do the job.
- He wants to keep me as a customer, so he wants to make me happy.
- If he makes me happy, I refer him to others.
- If I refer him to others, he makes more money.
- If he makes more money off me, he’ll continue to try to find tax breaks and benefits for me to keep ME happy so I refer more people.

That is the general outline, and how do I find this said person? Like I said above, I interviewed 5-10 potential candidates and decided if he was a good fit. I LIKE tax deductions and I will take them when I can - I want to get the most bang for my buck and put it to good use.

I used a fairly straightforward approach to interviewing the first round of CPAs that you’re welcome to use:

1. How long have you been doing this?
2. How many customers do you have?
3. Do you like your job? (If he likes numbers, he/she’ll certainly show it)
4. How long do you see yourself continuing to do this? (You want someone that will be around for a while to keep you up to date)
5. Do you email? (I LOVE email and do all 95% of ALL my communication through it)
6. How tightly do you watch the numbers? Is it just you that will see my tax return? (Usually having 2 or 3 sets of eyes helps)
7. Do I have to pay you a yearly fee to do this, or is it one time?
8. Do you give consultations through the year if I request? At a charge? (my guy doesn’t charge for these)

Those were the first basic questions I asked just to get a feel for the person I was hiring. Most of the time the H&R Block tax people aren’t that in depth with the questions; most of the people I’ve talked to (including the one I interviewed) said that the person they used from H&R Block was a 23 year old fresh out of school that had book smart, but not so much tax smart; which isn’t conducive to question #1.

Furthermore, do I even want to bother dealing with the mess? I took American Government 10+ years ago in high school and we filled out our w-2, w-4, 1099, and filed through the mail - but do I remember how to do that? Do I WANT to remember how to do it? Not really. How about stack on top of that the 100ish new laws that went into effect this year, do you know those laws? Do they apply to you? Do you want to keep up on those for $100? Is your time worth that? Not mine.

Everyone is different though, maybe $100 to you is a big deal and you want to try to tackle it yourself online at TurboTax, TaxCut, or somewhere else, and that’s fine too. But my rebuttal to that is: what if you do something wrong? The only person to blame is yourself, whereas for $100 you can have someone to dump the case on when Uncle Sam comes knocking at your door because you claimed 0 and have 12 kids.

If you own a business, there’s 1,000,000 or so more reasons to pay someone to do your taxes. You’re no longer talking about just YOUR salary or just YOUR deductions, YOUR rent, and YOUR student loans. You’re taking on everything a business owner needs to address, and everything a business owner stands to lose if you’re caught in a tax nightmare like an audit. A professional CPA, for $100-$200 could certainly be a shield between a hellacious tax audit by yourself at night, and having someone to put the burden on and you just standby and give info as needed. In my opinion, that alone is worth the $150ish bucks I pay for it.

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