My accountant told me to stop filing my own taxes, saved me $2,000 in penalties

Honestly, I thought I was being smart by doing my taxes myself with free software for like five years. My accountant, Sarah from H&R Block downtown, finally convinced me last April to let her handle it. She spotted depreciation on my home office that I never claimed and caught a mistake from 2021 that was gonna cost me a $2,000 penalty. She charged $350 for the whole thing, and between the refund bump and avoiding that penalty, I came out way ahead. I was stubborn and thought I knew enough, but nope, I was missing stuff left and right. Has anyone else had their accountant find something big they completely overlooked?

3 comments

3 Comments

thompson.nathan8d ago

My bookkeeper found the same thing with my home office deduction. I was using the simplified method and losing out on like $800 a year. She also flagged some mileage I'd been tracking wrong for years. That $350 fee is totally worth it when you factor in the stuff you're just flat out missing.

joseph_torres7d agoTop Commenter

Dude yes exactly. I had the same wake up call last year when I hired a part time bookkeeper just to clean up my QuickBooks. I had been using the standard mileage rate and completely forgetting about tolls and parking fees for client meetings. She found like $600 in stuff I just never thought to track. Plus she showed me how I was classifying some expenses wrong that actually triggered a higher tax bracket in one quarter. It's wild how much we just leave on the table because we don't know what we don't know.

nancy4756d ago

Whoa, I was totally skeptical before but @thompson.nathan you changed my mind on this.