...although it could have been just sales propaganda. So how does it work. Do I just go to their website and find a local person and send them an email/call them and get a meeting set up? Has anyone used them before? Basically my income last year was complicated (to me), unemployment income, self-employment income, and trading income, and it's worth a few hundred to me to let someone else do it and take the blame if they fuck up and I get audited. So, NAEA, tell me about it.
If you can show that you declared [substantially] all income and have a legit explanation for any deductions you've taken*, there is no reason to fear an audit. * IRS may disagree on this, but it's not a biggie... even if you lose the argument. The only REAL risks are (1) failure to declare significant amounts of income, and (2) wild, unsupported write-offs.
Just ask around (your city) for a good CPA for your tax prep. My experience with H&R Block is that they are just as expensive and half as knowledgeable. $300 is a small price to pay for piece of mind in tax preparation, IMO.
That's what tax preparers would like you to believe. Years ago, my wife went to a CPA to do our taxes (a relationship from before we got married)... as the CPA was inputting the data, I asked.. "What's that, the CPA version of Turbo Tax?". He said, "Yes, Turbo Tax"... So, instead of paying him $400 to type in the numbers, we now do it ourselves for $40... So I say again... "If you declare your income and can support your deductions, there is no reason to fear an audit"... Sure, an audit will be a nuisance... but it won't cost you much, if anything... and the odds of being audited are around 1%... unless your return "red flags" significant unreported income or has large, "potentially unsupport-able" deductions.
My "expenses" are a few computer software programs and money that I paid to outsource some work. I paid for all of those with PayPal so I have easy records. Those are all legit expenses, right? It's not like I'm taking my friends out to lunch and saying "business expense!" So for the people I pay for outsourcing some of my work, I just paid them a flat dollar amount. I didn't withhold taxes or any of that stuff. So technically, they're independent contractors and are responsible for their own taxes on what I paid them, right?