Learning to do taxes?

Question

I have started a bookkeeping business and I am interested in learning to do taxes.

I'm thinking I would like to do just personal taxes and maybe work my way into small business taxes.

Is it easy to learn to file taxes? And what software is recommended (QuickBooks user)? How much should I charge?

I am just trying to make up my mind if I want to put the time and money into learning this. I realize I will have costs involved and I am wondering if it will be worth it.

I would love some input...THANKS!

I cannot go through H&R Block since they require you to sign a "No Compete" form before taking classes.

Answer 1

Doing taxes can be a very rewarding and profitable business..
Starting with personal taxes is a great way to get your feet wet.. When it comes to doing business returns that can be a bit more complicated.. The best way to get into doing business returns is to start small prehaps with quarterly withholding filings or sole properitary business which can actually be done using a Sched. C (which is part of the 1040 individual return).. Most large business would perfer a CPA which ='s college + state exams+ continuing education.
A list of tax software can be found at: http://www.irs.gov/efile/lists/0,,id=119096,00.html
(it says corporate but they all have individual programs also)
Most softwares do alot of the work for you, you can call a few and get samples of their program.. There are two basicly types of programs, the interview or fill in the forms..
How much you charge depends on many things.. ie. the area of the country you're in, How complicated the return is, what your competition is charging (call them).. Is a state return being filed... Remember, the fee you charge will say alot of your worth to your clients..
Good luck..

Answer 2

Jackson Hewitt and H&R Block both offer tax classes. (No, you don't have to work there during tax season to take the class.) I took the Block one a couple of years ago and it was very thorough. The challenge with taxes is keeping current every year since so many changes happen all the time. You can learn the basics but will still have to study a lot each year.

Personally, I had to get out of the individual tax business. There were just too many variables and individuals withheld too much information from me because they wanted to get a bigger refund check. Or they rushed into the office as soon as they received their first W2 and didn't wait for additional W2s or bank documents to arrive so we had to keep amending their returns. It made me nervous that I might have some liability for (unknowingly) helping someone file a false return or that I might accidentally miss something due to a late tax code change. There has been some talk about regulating tax preparers to make sure they know what they are doing but I haven't seen anything official yet. (The AMT calculations can be tricky and some people want to restrict preparation of AMT returns to CPAs from what I have seen in a couple of accounting trade magazines.)

I've done taxes for my family for years with TurboTax. It is super easy and walks you through the steps. There are multiple versions depending on your needs: basic, deluxe, small business, etc. You can use the same copy to prepare multiple returns but you need to buy a new version each year.

We charged $25/hour for tax prep which was about average for my area. You can do a basic return in about an hour while a more complicated one with a lot of paperwork can take much longer. We had considered a flat fee but it just didn't seem right given the variable time required.

You can email me if you want more info.

Answer 3

Learn To Do Taxes

Answer 4

many of the tax preparation companies have classes to teach you about doing taxes. Check with some of the local companies.

Just having Turbo Tax doesn't give you the knowledge to do others taxes. If you screw up or give bad advice, they can come back after you.