I just spent like $200 to file mine with TurboTax only because I have a very simple 1099-K/Schedule C since my wife sells things on Etsy. I know Schedule C can range from my simple setup to absolutely ridiculous, so I don't totally grudge it. But at the same time, there are a lot of small business owners where that's a big chunk of change for them.
[0] It also has other things such as RSUs, stock sales, real estate, cash distributions from businesses, etc... For personal taxes I do not see why anyone would pay a tax accountant as opposed to using TurboTax.
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I think the worst thing I had to do was write a FIFO calculator to go through my thousands of tiny crypto transactions back in early 2020s thankfully I don't screw around with that anymore (especially when I got rekt and lost $4K)
Also while I have intellect, I am defective like anxiety, bad genes (or maybe it's not genes but environment anyway I'm not who I want to be)
Off the top of my head, this can be a topic of discussion in Nash Equilibria/Tragedy of the Commons/Game Theory just from an economic lens.
I don't have any formal education in these fields, but I'm sure there are fields in general philosophy ("Given presumably others too have lied and done it, are genes of anxious liars actually better than that of an anxious honest person? But if they go ahead, don't they become a liar? Maybe their conscience makes them still a better person?") and medicine too ("Is honesty even inheritable? How significantly inheritable is anxiety? Does it even matter? - Because for example apparently almost 30% of all humans have a depressive episode. Maybe most humans already have the genes but it's just not expressed?)
I'm rambling a bit, but I just wanted to show how much 3 words could be expanded if someone wanted to analyse it thoroughly. Really love the comment.
(I don't personally condone lying but I do appreciate a good philosophical dilemma and discussion.)
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_(Dungeons_%26_Dragon...
Even without RSUs, I usually have hundreds of transactions across multiple brokers.
Approximately zero brokers do this, because RSU are still noncovered shares.
> Even without RSUs, I usually have hundreds of transactions across multiple brokers.
As a corollary, "hundreds of transactions" of covered shares collapsed into one summary line.
RSU is a pain though to enter. Technically you can enter a summary line and send in a 1099 to the IRS (last year was the first year that could be done electronically, so, fingers crossed it actually works correctly).
I suspect many others on HN have something similar setup.
And I suspect the #1 most common tax form H&R does for retail clients is the 1040EZ, the one that should take anyone with a $2 calculator a total of 10 minutes to get through. For the privilege of having H&R do it for you, you get to pay about $75 and they'll generously loan you your own few thousand dollar (due to EITC) refund on the spot, at an effective APR of like 7,000%
What tax complexities exist for low income people that would cause $200 fees?
I've often taken on a side project or two a year for software dev/consulting and it usually winds up being $200-350 to have my taxes done. If I only have W2 income, I'll do the electronic version of TurboTax though. I also do 0 deductions and have extra out of each check taken out just in case, I don't set aside or do quarterly payments and usually get a decent return back.