Whoa! My guy wanted $250 for the personal stuff, and that
included a property rental. However, he wanted $750 for the
S Corp and $500 for my LLC. I opted instead for $200 on
TurboTax for Biz and TaxCut Deluxe for Personal. Piece of
cake.

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I just priced your return out on my Schedule of Minimum
Charges. $350 and that comes with a house call, the
recommendation of the NOLO Press book Landlording, a
Salvation Army Guideline sheet for donated stuff, and
financial advice and alerts all year. I'm in Los Angeles
County, too.

Linda Dorfmont E.A., CFP, CSA

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"dos...[at]scicable.com" <dos...[at]scicable.com> wrote:
- quote -

Yup, fee seems excessive to me.

My charge would probably have been around $300-$400.

Rudy
www.LizcanoTaxServicesLLC.com

Disclaimer: The posted answer is for educational purposes
only and Lizcano Tax Services, LLC and/or Rodolfo Lizcano
have not been engaged to render any tax, accounting, legal,
or other professional services.

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Debra McLaren <debramcla...[at]gatewaynet.bigpond.com> wrote:

- quote -

Seeing as how you did most of the work by filling out the 25
page questionaire you should have charged your accountant
1100 dollars that would have made the overall fee about
right.

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Debra McLaren wrote:

- quote -

If you are a high school teacher and "$ 100 Assembly fee"
means that's what your preparer charged to visit your school
and give a 45 minute tax preparation presentation to the
assembled student body, it seems reasonable. If that is
what he charged you to stack and staple the forms, yikes!

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"GOBLUE" <jjhaydenea[at]aol.com> wrote:
- quote -

I'd concur with Jim

Off the cuff no higher than $500 but more likely a $250-$300
return.

Rgs,

Mark

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"GOBLUE" <jjhaydenea[at]aol.com> wrote
- quote -

<<<<Snip details of bill> > > >
- quote -

Both you and I live in "middle" America. It seems to me
that the fringes of this country, mostly the west fringe and
the east fringe, have different standards. I'm pretty sure
it costs a heck of a lot more to live in California than in
Michigan or Georgia. Given that, I predict that my fees in
CA would be quite a bit higher than they are in GA, mostly
out of necessity.

Also, based on conversations with the OP in another group,
she has rental property, and there may be other factors not
disclosed. And we don't have a clue as to the condition of
her records and source documents.

--
Paul Thomas, CPA
paulthomascpapc[at]bellsouth.net

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Debra McLaren wrote:

- quote -

I love that final tack-on cost, especially when you consider
what the person doing the "assembly" was probably paid and
that your actual return was probably e-filed.

You have to remember that the first year you go to any shop
is going to entail a lot more overhead than a returning
client. I don't agree however that you should have to spend
a lot of time filling out paper data sheets, that is very
lame and exactly one of the conveniences I think many want
to pay for.

Your income is probably too high to qualify for "free" tax
prep, and just yesterday I saw a new client's 2005 return
that was done by a community volunteer and cost the client
hundreds of dollars in un-owed taxes due to incorrect
inclusion of non-taxable scholarship income and failure to
take any education-related benefits.

At the other extreme, at the price you paid, I would expect
to get the principal CPA's home and personal cell phone
number, an invite to a hosted-bar event at the firm's office
on April 18th, and a free tax planning session in November
2007 for next year!

The national chains are easy targets to knock, but in
California (indicated as your residence) ALL paid preparers
are required to be certified by the state, and it's not
uncommon to find Enrolled Agents or those with many years
experience working in the chain offices, especially in the
areas with higher financial demographics. You probably
would have paid significantly less for the same return.

-Mark Bole

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I do not know if that is out of range in CA, but in IL it is
way out of range. Mine would have been [at] $150-200.

And my questionaire (check list) is one page with large
type.

Missy Doyle

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Debra McLaren <debramcla...[at]gatewaynet.bigpond.com> wrote:

- quote -

You got tremendously overcharged. This is way in excess of
the normal bill. He saw you coming.

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Debra McLaren <debramcla...[at]gatewaynet.bigpond.com> wrote:

- quote -

I'll just say that if I could do simple returns like that
for exorbitant fees like that (and be able to get repeat
business) I'd quit my job and do about 100 such returns
every year. Then I would spend the other 350 days in the
year salving my conscience in comfort.

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Debra McLaren wrote:

- quote -

So, you say you had a straightforward return, did you?

- quote -

I don't see how that could be the case, since you have such
a straightforward return with so few transactions.

- quote -

I'm sure you could have gotten a contract clerical person
through a temp agency much cheaper, if all you needed was a
typist.

Or were you really hoping to hire a trained professional who
understood the tax law and your situation, and could
appropriately apply one to the other, because your situation
wasn't in fact straightforward, but was rather complex
enough that you, the person with the most knowledge of your
individual situation, weren't sure you could arrive at the
correct answer?

- quote -

Gah. I'm not sure why clients think that stapled and
collated copies are easier to work with than loose originals
in random order, but at least for me, that's not the case.

- quote -

Unless it was one question per page, I'm guessing what you
filled out is what I'd call and organizer. So now you've
given this poor guy a giant stack of stapled photocopies and
summaries of the same information, which he now has to
compare to figure out which pieces are redundant and which
are included one place, but not the other. Because even if
you had no discrepancies, 99% of clients do.

Plus it looks like he probably had to do a lot of initial
setup work related to depreciation and AMT, not all of which
may have been easily obtainable from the information you
provided.

- quote -

I'm in Oklahoma, a much lower-rent state, and you could
easily have paid that much for us to do the return, billing
by the hour. Personally I think the fee by form schedule
isn't necessarily a good match for the effort directly
related to each form, but in total, I wouldn't call it an
unconscionable fee.

Phoebe

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Debra McLaren <debramcla...[at]gatewaynet.bigpond.com> wrote:

- quote -

My fee would have been very close to $200.

Christopher Mewhort, EA, CGA
mewhorttax.com

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Debra McLaren <debramclaren[at]gatewaynet.bigpond.com> wrote:

- quote -

In small-town north west Alabama that would have cost you
$250. (But then we don't have a StarBucks in town; although
we do have a McD which according to Consumer's Reports has
better coffee)

--
To email me directly, remove CLUTTER.

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Debra McLaren <debramcla...[at]gatewaynet.bigpond.com> wrote:

- quote -

It seems high to me.

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Debra McLaren <debramcla...[at]gatewaynet.bigpond.com> wrote:

- quote -

Sounds higher than heck to me!

Jim Hayden EA - Michigan

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What is a reasonable fee for straightforward 2006 tax
calculations in California? How does $1,350 fit in the cost
spectrum?

I just paid $1,350 and I don't know if that's high or low
for a single individual with a single job, a second home
where I junked a computer before the depreciation ran out, a
single bank account, about four stock sales, $450 dollars in
total charitable contributions, and living in California.

Tax calculations have finally gotten the better of me so I
decided for the first time ever to have an accountant type
the numbers in instead of me typing into TurboTax myself.

After spending days gathering all the data, xeroxing,
stapling, collating, the information, I filled out the
accountants 25 page questionaire and handed him the 1099s,
W2s, and tax summaries. Within three weeks time, he gave me
my completed taxes back with the following bill.

I'm not balking at the bill. I'm just wondering if it's a
good price or a normal price or a bad price, that's all. I
have nothing to base my "feelings" upon, so I ask you to
help me with perspective.

Here is the bill.
$ 250 Form 1040, US Individual income tax return
$ 75 Schedule A, Itemized deductions
$ 50 Schedule B, Interest and ordinary dividends
$ 100 Schedule D, Capital gains and losses
$ 25 Schedule D, Capital gains and losses, AMT
$ 100 Schedule E, Supplemental income and loss page 1
$ 0 Form 1040-V, Payment voucher
$ 0 Form 2210, Underpayment of estimated tax by individuals
$ 75 Form 4562, Depreciation and amortization
$ 100 Form 4797, Sales of business property
$ 100 Form 6251, Alternative Minimum Tax
$ 75 Form 8283, Noncash charitable contributions page 1
$ 50 Form 8582, Passive activity loss limitations
$ 25 0 Form 8582, Passive activity loss limitations, AMT
$ 75 Form 8801, Credit for prior year minimum tax
$ 0 Form 8879, E-File signature authorization
$ 0 Alternative minimum tax depreciation report
$ 0 Two-year comparison worksheet
$ 150 CA 540, Resident income tax return
$ 0 CA Schedule CA, California adjustments
$ 0 CA Schedule D, Capital gain or loss adjustment
$ 0 CA Schedule P, AMT computation & credit limitations
$ 0 CA Schedule W-2 CG, California W-2 attachment
$ 0 CA 3582, Electronic payment voucher
$ 0 CA 3801, Passive activity loss limitations
$ 0 CA 3801, Passive activity loss limitations, AMT
$ 0 CA 3801, Worksheet for step 4
$ 100 Assembly fee

Is this price about in the middle of what most people are
paying today? Is it better? Worse? About average?

Debra

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