When Should I Do My Own Taxes?

I often hear the question, “When should a person do his/her own tax return?” Now nobody ever asks me that directly, as a professional preparer you’d think I’d say, “Always!” And yeah, that’s pretty much my general answer. But let’s face it, right now money is tight for everyone and if you can keep more of your money in your pocket by doing something yourself, maybe you should.

Here’s a clue: How long does it take for someone to do your taxes for you? I was reading in the paper today about a guy who whipped out tax returns for clients at an average rate of 15 minutes per return. If your preparer can finish your return in 15 minutes, that’s not tax preparation–that’s data entry. If you’ve just got a simple data entry type return, then you can probably do it yourself for free online.

Here’s an example: Peggy is a single person living in Missouri making $35,000 a year (roughly the median income for a single person her age.) Working a regular wage earning job, she’ll have $2,170 taken out for social security and $508 taken out for medicare taxes. Her federal income tax for the year will be $3,434 and her state income tax will be $1,225. So, for the year, she’s paying $7,337 in income related taxes alone. That’s almost 21% of her income.

If you’re going to spend 20% or more of your annual income on something, don’t you think it deserves more than 15 minutes of attention? If I were doing Peggy’s taxes, we’d be talking about her plans–does she want to buy a house? get married? go back to school? save for retirement? etc. We’d also talk about her job, what kind of benefits are available, is she taking advantage of those programs, etc. We’d also be talking about any ways that might be available for Peggy to reduce paying 21% of her income towards taxes.

It’s quite possible that there’s nothing there for Peggy. There are no possible deductions for her, she doesn’t care about retirement, she just wants her taxes to be filed and be done with it. Mr. 15 Minutes is good enough for her. In that case, why pay him when she can do it herself? Peggy would be a prime candidate for doing her own taxes.

Twenty percent of your income deserves more than 15 minutes of thought. If you’re going to a 15 Minute Man, that’s all you’ll get and you really would be better off doing it yourself.