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Do you remember the episode of the ODD COUPLE television series where Felix explains to Oscar what happens when you assume (you make an ass out of u and me)?

Making false assumptions when choosing a tax preparer can be costly.

1) Don't assume that because a person has the initials "CPA" after his name he is an expert when it comes to federal and state income taxes!

The CPA designation means that a person took a very difficult test at the beginning of his career, possibly many, many years ago, only a small part of which dealt with federal income tax. It is no guarantee that he is current on federal and state tax law.

Whenever I get a new client I ask to see his or her last three (3) years' tax returns, to make sure I do not miss any carry-forwards and to see if there are any errors that I could correct on an amended return. In my 35 years of preparing tax returns I have found more mistakes on 1040s prepared by CPAs than by any other class of preparer, including the taxpayer himself.

Some 25+ years ago I was a "para-professional" in the Small Business Services Department of one of the then "Big Eight" accounting firms. While reviewing the prior year's federal and state tax returns of a client whose current returns I was preparing I found a very obvious error on the state tax return that caused the client to pay more tax than necessary. Under the firm's policy, the return, which had been originally prepared by a CPA, was reviewed by his "manager" (also a CPA), and signed-off on by the head of the department (a CPA) and a member of the Tax Department (a CPA). Not one of these CPAs picked up the obvious error!

The only thing you can be sure of with a CPA is that you will be charged twice the price for half the service.

A student in one of the tax planning/preparation courses I taught at local adult schools many years ago asked me what was the difference between a tax return prepared by a CPA and one prepared by me (I am obviously not a CPA). My answer was "at least $100.00" (that number needs to be adjusted for inflation!).

There has been some concern in the past about the practice of CPA firms "outsourcing" the preparation of 1040s to India. This should not be a cause for concern. Between you and me - you are much more likely to have your 1040 prepared properly and accurately by a contracted preparer in India than by a CPA here in the United States!

CPA firms obviously outsource their 1040 preparation to save money. But you can be damned sure that a CPA will not charge

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