Anyone here who is a 1099?

[M A V I C]

[quote spearmint]An 1099 is what you get from a company or individual when you get paid from them as a company or independent.
Depends on what type of company you are. Typically you only get one if you're an individual.

But agreed on the rest of what you said.

[bassguy]

sorry to come in so late on this one- wife and I have a dozen or more 1099s between the two of us, 4 or 5 W-2s, a bunch of nondescript income, deductions of 15 or 20 different types, depreciation, autos, business use of home, 2 businesses, and usually a 20 page tax return or so. (ah, the life of freelance musicians) I've done my own taxes since forever, use turbotax, and have no problems. Pretty easy, all told. Not really any more work than it would be to put all the info together to give to someone else. Just my $.02
John

[Mike Sellers]

[quote bassguy]Not really any more work than it would be to put all the info together to give to someone else.
That's always been my feeling about doing my own taxes. Unless you dump a bag of receipts and bank statements on the CPA and ask him to sort it all out, you're doing all the hard work and just paying him to run the numbers through TurboTax. Yes, some people's taxes are complicated enough to enlist a CPA but most can be handled by anyone within a couple of hours, once you have the numbers pulled together.

[M A V I C]

[quote Mike Sellers][quote bassguy]Not really any more work than it would be to put all the info together to give to someone else.
That's always been my feeling about doing my own taxes. Unless you dump a bag of receipts and bank statements on the CPA and ask him to sort it all out, you're doing all the hard work and just paying him to run the numbers through TurboTax. Yes, some people's taxes are complicated enough to enlist a CPA but most can be handled by anyone within a couple of hours, once you have the numbers pulled together.
Taxes are not just about the numbers. There are many tax laws and rules on how those numbers get run. TurboTax and such, play it very safe and pretty much always having you paying more than what's due.

A good accountant will know the rules. They'll know how the same purchase can be deducted 10 different ways and which one is the best when combined with what else you do.

One year a friend of mine owed about $80k in taxes. His accountant said that was the lowest he could get it. He found another accountant and she got it down to $20k. She was an IRS auditor for 20 years, she knows the rules of the game very well. She's now my accountant.

For the first few years of my business, I did my taxes myself, then gave her the data and had her do them. She always saved me more on my taxes than she cost me. So in the end, she saves me more money than she costs and she saves me time.