Taxaphobic in Chicago
September 28, 2014 7:14 PM Subscribe
We hate doing our taxes. Despite a professional familiarity with the basics of the tax code, or perhaps because of it, dealing with all of the paperwork really stresses me out, and my spouse doesn't like to do it either. Can you help us find an accountant in the Chicago area who will be competent and easygoing? Details inside.
We don't have an extremely complicated tax situation (no LLCs or things like that), but it's complicated enough. There are random bits of income from consulting and capital gains, combined with random bits of expenses that might or might not be deductible. This takes time and is unpleasant and we don't want to have to do it, though we used to do our taxes ourselves.
Also, we tend to be a little bit slow about collecting all of our tax documents every year, both because it's moderately complicated and because we're procrastinators.
What we'd really like is to find an accountant who could make this part of our lives easier. Our ideal accountant would be somebody who, in mid March or late March, would accept a sheaf of papers or a giant scanned file, ask us whatever questions were necessary, and then take care of completing our tax returns. Or who would file an extension for us and deal with it later. Either way.
Importantly, we do not want him or her to scold us for being late, for being disorganized, etc. We do not want to have to fill out worksheets (which the accountant recommended in this thread would require). We know we should be better about those things, but we're not better, and we don't want our accountant to try to make us better. We just want help giving money to the government.
Even better would be if that person could also field a small number of tax queries throughout the year, or help us advise us about the tax consequences of occasional financial decisions.
We understand that hiring this accountant might cost us more than we save in any improved deductions. That's fine. We don't want to be taken for chumps, but the main priority isn't getting better deductions, it's time. We'd like to be able to hire somebody to take care of this task so we can get back the time we'd spend dealing with it and the time we'd spend worrying about it. Our philosophy is to hire good people and then trust them.
Can anybody help us figure out where to turn?
We don't have an extremely complicated tax situation (no LLCs or things like that), but it's complicated enough. There are random bits of income from consulting and capital gains, combined with random bits of expenses that might or might not be deductible. This takes time and is unpleasant and we don't want to have to do it, though we used to do our taxes ourselves.
Also, we tend to be a little bit slow about collecting all of our tax documents every year, both because it's moderately complicated and because we're procrastinators.
What we'd really like is to find an accountant who could make this part of our lives easier. Our ideal accountant would be somebody who, in mid March or late March, would accept a sheaf of papers or a giant scanned file, ask us whatever questions were necessary, and then take care of completing our tax returns. Or who would file an extension for us and deal with it later. Either way.
Importantly, we do not want him or her to scold us for being late, for being disorganized, etc. We do not want to have to fill out worksheets (which the accountant recommended in this thread would require). We know we should be better about those things, but we're not better, and we don't want our accountant to try to make us better. We just want help giving money to the government.
Even better would be if that person could also field a small number of tax queries throughout the year, or help us advise us about the tax consequences of occasional financial decisions.
We understand that hiring this accountant might cost us more than we save in any improved deductions. That's fine. We don't want to be taken for chumps, but the main priority isn't getting better deductions, it's time. We'd like to be able to hire somebody to take care of this task so we can get back the time we'd spend dealing with it and the time we'd spend worrying about it. Our philosophy is to hire good people and then trust them.
Can anybody help us figure out where to turn?
I can recommend a great accountant (with a master's degree in taxation, no less) in Libertyville. Memail me if the location would suit you.
posted by DrGail at 5:04 AM on September 29, 2014
posted by DrGail at 5:04 AM on September 29, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by michaelh at 7:32 PM on September 28, 2014