For those experienced NSA’s…what is your opinion on using turbo tax vs an accountant? Pros and cons?
That depends on individual situations - I had some basic prior tax prep experience along with a background in a legal career, so TurboTax worked for me. If I had no previous experience/training I’d probably go with a good accountant or IRS Enrolled Agent. Also depends on how much you have going and how complex your returns are going to be, both personal and business…along with your comfort level with it.
All that said, I just did our taxes on TurboTax as I have every year for the past 45 years - and some parts of it this year confused me - along with the fact that they wanted mileage info on a car that was out of service for half of 2019 and all of 2020 as it was totaled - and I had NO Schedule C income for 2020!! No idea…I expect a letter from IRS in the summer…lol
I use TurboTax and have found it to be very simple to use. I haven’t figured out yet how to deduct the $10 per notarization allowed from Michigan State taxes because I didn’t need it last year, but probably will this year.
Turbo tax walks you through that
I definitely go with a tax prep/accountant, but that’s probably because I filed as an S-Corp which makes things nicer for personal taxes.
So, to kimhoffner13 and countsjd, I realize we are talking about TurboTax, but my question is as a self employed person whether you started your company as a LLC would Quickbooks be good for a notary public to use for business purposes?
I’m probably a bit old-fashioned, but I think accountants are much more efficient than TurboTax. If we are talking about asset management of enterprises, then certainly a good specialist is many times better than some program. Although I understand that progress is moving forward, it is necessary to implement updates in the workflow of both the company and the finance department. Therefore, last month I purchased the create checkstubs service. My accountant approved this choice and said that it would increase the speed of her work. Perhaps someday, they will create a program that will replace a professional in their field, but I am not sure that I will live to see these times…