> Serious question. I used Turbotax again this year. I want to get off of it next year.
If you're doing all that crazy stuff you mentioned, then you're gonna need a tax prep specialist, yeah. But you're in a tiny, tiny minority if you're doing any of that, and you're almost unique if you're doing all of it. So it's OK if the system doesn't optimize for that very special case.
If you're just managing a W-2 and a few 1099s, and maybe one or two of the crazy things you mentioned, then it's easy to just do your own taxes and skip the tax prep scam industry. It takes me about two hours to do mine & my wife's. Most of it is just manually entering data into the IRS's Free Fillable Forms website, and then doing some basic calculator math, then copying most of the same info over to our state taxes. It's not trivial, and it will be a little frustrating your first time doing it, but it's about on the order of middle school math class exam. Not fun, but not graduate level physics or anything.
If you do screw up, the IRS will politely let you know your error and how to fix it. It's not a big deal. (Unless you're intentionally trying to hide something. Don't do that.)
If you're doing all that crazy stuff you mentioned, then you're gonna need a tax prep specialist, yeah. But you're in a tiny, tiny minority if you're doing any of that, and you're almost unique if you're doing all of it. So it's OK if the system doesn't optimize for that very special case.
If you're just managing a W-2 and a few 1099s, and maybe one or two of the crazy things you mentioned, then it's easy to just do your own taxes and skip the tax prep scam industry. It takes me about two hours to do mine & my wife's. Most of it is just manually entering data into the IRS's Free Fillable Forms website, and then doing some basic calculator math, then copying most of the same info over to our state taxes. It's not trivial, and it will be a little frustrating your first time doing it, but it's about on the order of middle school math class exam. Not fun, but not graduate level physics or anything.
If you do screw up, the IRS will politely let you know your error and how to fix it. It's not a big deal. (Unless you're intentionally trying to hide something. Don't do that.)