Doing your own tax returns?

Doing your Own Taxes?
Let me give you my prospectus on this issue and see if we can make sense of this.  I am all for persons learning about money, how it works, and how money is to work for you.  I am all for persons taking charge of their financial situations including reporting requirements to the Internal Revenue Service.  If you have a simple tax return to file and by simple I mean one or five W-2 forms maybe some interest in Banks and some dividends from investments you have made I would recommend you preparing your own taxes to learn a little more about your money at this stage in your financial life.  There are many of my colleagues that would cringe that I am recommending this due to the fact that is business that is being "lost".  Unfortunately for them I do not feel this way, however I do not recommend using a tax program for this, if your going to do this do it by hand, and write neatly.
If you own a home, have rental property, sell stock or other related investments, have significant employee business expenses, are self-employed, significant medical deductions, charitable contributions in cash or in tangible items, have interest or dividends over $1500.00 per year pay or receive alimony, receive K'1 forms from an "S" Corp, Partnership, or a Trust then have us assist you in the preparation.  There are so many changes every year for people to keep up with.  Certified Tax Experts, Inc. sends out its preparers to conferences and workshops every year to keep updated in the new changes that may affect you and your family.  These workshops some times are out of the area and we spend approximately $10,000.00 annually in education to make sure our preparers have the most updated information available to them when preparing your tax return year after year.
Using a tax program to prepare your taxes - Where do I start with this one?  The growing popularity of tax preparation software has become enormous.  The ads on television how you can save hundreds of dollars by preparing your own taxes and getting it done just like the "tax man" does and it is easy as 1-2-3...
 
 
 
 
Again use my formula above to see if you should prepare your own taxes or ask a professional to assist you.  The issue with tax programs is not so much with the operator as the program itself.  These programs are designed to interview you as a tax payer.  The program asks you particular questions to different subjects and you answer yes or no.  When you answer yes you are to fill in the blank with the figures that are shown on the particular form that it is interviewing you about. 
The issue I have is that it doesn't know you.  It is not able to carry on a conversation with you in order to determine to ask other questions that the computer would not know about.  When the operator of the program answers the questions sometimes they are confused in exactly what it means to have an employee business expense or that my dry cleaning and cell phone are deductible because my job requires me to have it but at what percentage? I am using my home as an office and I should deduct it because the software says I can.  But does the software remind you that you must recapture that depreciation expense when you sell your home at a 25% tax rate?
These are things you’re missing when not dealing with a professional so I ask you.... Is it worth spending hours at home trying to figure out if you should write off that business trip that may or may not be deductible to save a few dollars by not paying an accountant? Or do you just roll the dice hope the software is right and the Internal Revenue Service doesn't audit you?
Let me tell you a secret...I spend over $1,500.00 in my software for tax preparation and it lies to me....you see I know its lying about a figure because I have been educated in the laws and the Internal revenue Codes as well I have prepared taxes for years by hand and had to use reference books to verify the accuracy of a figure.  This is what I do for a living day in and day out that is why the software allows me to override figures.  They put that in there because they know it lies too.  Now if my $1,500.00 software is not accurate all the time how's that $29.95 software you’re using.  Maybe not so willing to roll the dice now huh?