It is that time of year – where everyone is hustling around trying to get a tax appointment lined up so you can see how much of a tax refund you get. Or maybe, you are brave enough to tackle the job yourself!

Doing taxes yourself is definitely doable, but here are some reasons why I recommend hiring a tax professional to do it and how it might save you money in the long run.

Here are the 6 reasons you should be hiring a tax professional

1.) It gives you piece of mind. 

Accountants deal with people and taxes every day, that means that they know what deductions to be looking for. It feels better to have someone else handle that for me.

2.)  You may be losing money 

The decision to do your taxes by yourself might be an effort to save money, but it could be counter-productive to not hire someone who could help you get more of your money back – to the point where the tax appointment will often pay for itself. A tax professional will often find more deductions for you and help you earn more of your hard working money back.

3.) Audit support.

If you’ve never been audited, you are blessed! Mark and I were audited back in 2009 and it would have been a nightmare had it not been for our tax professionals.  They helped us through the entire process and made it so much more manageable.

You will need to ask your tax accountant if they help in the case of an audit, so pick one that does for extra support.

4.) Time spent wisely

It could take you 10 hours to make sure you have all your ducks in a row if you try to do your taxes yourself.  Going to a tax professional often takes less than an hour and you have now gained 9 hours hours of your life back.

5.) There are no hidden gimmicks.

Many times when you sign up for a free tax offer, you spend an hour or two filling out the form, you are nickel and dimed for each page you use. And then, if you qualify for the earned income tax credit, suddenly it’s not free anymore. You will have to pay a fee to get your total form processed. When you hire a tax accountant, you know what you are getting up front and know what to budget for.

6.) Hire THE professional.

You do what you are good at – let other people do what they are good at.  Our tax code is very complicated, and it makes sense that this be one of the things that you should be hiring out. Your next problem is finding a good person to hire. That brings me to my next point.

There is a great website called Prosado.

It is a great website that helps walk you through picking the perfect tax professional – it is a bit new, but I think it is a very promising concept.

Here is how it works:

1.) Sign up for a free account here.

2.) Enter in your zip code.

After entering your zip code, you will see a list of tax and accounting professionals that are near you.

3.) Invite local accountants to bid to get your business.

You can contact professionals from your search results to help you decide who you would like to invite to bid on preparing your tax return. Once you have invited up to 4 professionals to bid, you’ll have a personal dashboard where you can monitor the bids you receive.

4.) Choose the best professional for you.

Once you have chosen the tax and accounting professional you would like to work with, Prosado will email both you and your chosen professional all contact information. The transactions are processed through Prosado and the accountant gets paid when the job is done. It gives you a peace of mind knowing that all of the payments and money are handled through a secure environment.

It’s that easy!

*************************************************

If you are a Tax Preparer – it is good for you too!

1. You can sign up for an account here.
2. Potential customers invite you to bid on them.
3. Your bid is either accepted or denied by the customer.
4. If accepted, Prosado collects the money and as soon as you mark the job complete, you get paid.

I think this website is a win/win for both customers and accountants. It is hard to know who to trust with your hard earned money, so try out Prosado and let me know what you find.

Disclosure: This post has been part of a sponsored campaign by Prosado. All opinions are 100% my own.