Sometimes I wish I could just prepare 1040-EZs all day from January through April. Charge $40 per return, hammer them out in five minutes as people sit in front of me, collect my money, and move onto the next in line.
And when April 15th arrives, I’m done.
There would be no bookkeeping clients to deal with.
No payroll clients to deal with.
No “hair-on-fire” moments with business clients.
No business clients complaining that I’m not being proactive enough.
No 990s to try and get filed in the summer months for not-for-profits.
No need to pay thousands of dollars for software.
No worries about tax credits or arguments with clients over whether they can take some deduction they think they should be able to take. A 1040-EZ is a return without tax credits or any deductions other than personal exemptions and the standard deduction.
The yearly changes in tax law don’t much affect people who file 1040-EZs. This would mean less stress and headaches trying to keep up with law changes.
Sometimes I wish I could just prepare 1040-EZs.
Sometimes.
But not really.
Why?
Truth be told, I like the more-complicated returns the best. They present a challenge. A puzzle to solve.
I’d go stir crazy just doing 1040-EZs.
But sometimes, I wish I could just prepare 1040-EZs.
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So you think your return preparation labor warrants $480 an hour? Seems a bit steep to me. Instead of dreaming of making $40 bucks every 5 minutes off a very simple return, you should spend your time figuring out why taxpayers are paying $40 for something that they could easily do themselves in perhaps as little 20 minutes and for free.
The post was written mostly tongue-in-cheek. Taxpayers who qualify for a 1040-EZ SHOULD do their own tax return because they’ll never see much value in paying a tax pro any amount of money to do it for them. Don’t take this post literally. I was just blowing off some steam. 🙂
I thought so – just making sure! Enjoy reading your blog, it’s helpful to those of us that work in tax administration. I remain curious about why 40 percent of 1040EZ’s are filed by a tax preparer though (IRS stats).
I didn’t know it was 40%. You are right, that’s crazy. Especially considering the minimum fees most of us charge. I’m on the cheapo side at $90 for a 1040-EZ. There’s a CPA firm in my town that charges something like $200 minimum. I can count on one hand the number of 1040-EZs I do in a year. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I’ve done an EZ for a non-dependent (and I charge $30 for those). None of my regular clients files an EZ. So where are these people going? Block? Liberty?