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Comment by bogota | Hacker News Reader

I hate wasting at least a day if not more of my life every year filing. As time goes on and i have more assets the time to file goes up as well and gathering all the required documents with every bank having different timelines is a nightmare.

But what can I do about it? I would imagine if it went to a vote overwhelmingly people would say no I don’t want to file like this every year. But here we are and honestly I don’t have much energy left these days to be mad about anything as it’s wearing on my health.

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If you have all these assets and your time is valuable I imagine you can cough up a few $ to pay a local tax accountant. I do this for my single member company, it costs $150 each year. Very worth it and a small price to pay. They even do a quick review of my books.

At this point I am familiar enough with all the forms that I could probably do it myself in less than an hour. But I don't mind supporting the accountant, it's fun to chat with him each year.

My tax person charges several times that amount and I still have to scramble to get all the documents to then. Remember, all the above mentioned issues still exist. If I forget a certain item, it is still my fault

I paid 600 usd last year fora tax accountant. He couldn't even do the most easiest part (1040 with stocks and dividend), and after struggling with him we didn't even proceed with the multistate reports I needed. It was complete waste of time and if I didn't check the result it would be also a waste of money and potential criminal action.

1040 filings are not easy at all. incorrectly filed 1040s can lead to things like your investments being classified as a PFIC and taxed at 39.6%

Sure, if a professional struggles with it it's by definition not easy. It was however easier then the complex part: I was moving between states separately from my spouse when we were both working full time. This could not be properly handled by any online service available (yes, I tried at least 4 different) and I ended up with filling forms manually by myself. It should not be this hard in first place. And yes, likely there are a lot of pros who can file it easily but finding anyone who is good in what he is doing is not easy.

OMG, PFIC is a nice pitfall.

You need to find a different accountant, my tax situation is as _least_ as complex as yours and has involved multiple states several times. I've never had an issue with sending him a large dump of files photos and notes and he's worked it out each time.

$150 is a stunning bargain. I think my accountant is up to ~$500 just for personal filing.

I've always done my own (US) taxes but have been mulling hiring an accountant this year. But "doing" the taxes is the easy part with software. It's collecting all the needed information that is painful. Will I just be paying an accountant to use their software? Or is there a real difference in using software like Intuit's and a real accountant for individual returns? (I have investments, retirement funds, etc.).

I have to pay $6,000 per year for tax. I hire a lot of employees in other states which means that I have to file a tax return in 30 states.

Intuit is pure evil.

The one and only time I used a "professional" tax preparer, I sat in their office and answered the questions they read off their "TurboTax for professionals" software. It was the same damn questions when I did it myself, except I was charged a fee, and I had to do it twice because I had to go home and retrieve some info I didn't have with the first time

This is the first year I've ever hired anyone to do my taxes. Got married, sold an investment property, started earning some rental income, and had a few other issues I didn't want to try to figure out myself. It was closer to $1500 than $150, for what it's worth.

Same, I have a full-time job and have a small side business, and my accountant does it all for $150. It's incredible and she saves me a lot of money.

I still have to collect all the documents and give them to the person. The time to file once i gather everything is negligible and unless i have a very complex year i just do it myself.

Just paying someone to do stuff doesn’t solve everything unless you are some level of rich I don’t understand where someone has access to all your accounts and does it for you.

If you have to spend hours doing your taxes, no gov run filing system is gonna help you reduce that. All these "I don't have to do anything to pay my taxes" things are essentially for wage earners taking standard deductions, minimal interest, minimal dividends, no mortgage, etc. And if you were in that situation, filing your IRS taxes would take 10 minutes, if that.

You could be like me and not file it until the sheriff shows up at your door saying you owe money and that you have a month to pay. (Don’t be like me)

If only there weren't large penalties involved in doing this.

And hey, if we want progressive taxation -- "is it really worth it for them to send somebody down to bring me the bill" is a great filter that everybody's taxes should be passed through.

You can structure your personal life such that you don't qualify to file a personal IRS yearly signed inquisition document.

Then be like Clintons and live your life spending through foundations, trusts, and companies via speaking payments.

It does require upfront effort to set up everything. An unexpected benefit is the financial privacy it brings.

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