Nancy Meyer just helped provide people with some good points for why you shouldn't get your taxes done by a tax preparer.
I'm about to explain why you should... but only by the right preparer.
You see, every year, thousands of hard working individuals go out there and prepare people's taxes for them.
For free.
Not "for free, but we take our fees out of your refund to pay for it." Not "for free, but only if a blind drunken armadillo could do your taxes on his own."
Free. Legit free.
More below the fold.
Open up a new tab, and go to your friendly neighborhood search engine. Then type in "VITA tax sites" with the current year.
Or just click here.
Or, if you're a technophobe somehow reading this diary because somebody printed it off and handed it to you without letting you know it was originally on The Internet (sorry for breaking the illusion there), pick up your phone and dial "211" for your nearest VITA site.
VITA stands for Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, and for the vast majority of people filing their taxes? They'll file it for you. For free. Most of them will even do so electronically.
The hard-working people doing this are students and tax professionals, among others. They are trained by the IRS and other tax agencies to provide these services. They can fill out practically all the forms you need.
For those of you in Wisconsin, I provide this link as evidence!
Earned Income Credit? They do that.
Homestead Credit? They do that too!
They'll even help if you've got (very basic) business income to handle, though if you need to file a full Schedule C instead of the C-EZ they'll point you to somebody doing the work professionally.
These people have been trained to fill out the forms properly, and to flip Nancy's phrasing, they don't want to do you.
They want to do your taxes.