Objectivist
06-05-2009, 06:49 PM
Most of you already know that even if you have a CPA do your taxes, more appropriately calculate your taxes you are ultimately responsible for the paperwork that you file and have your signature on the tax papers showing that you are responsible for the filing.
Bear with me on the set up.
Now recently I had a CPA retire during the time I had filed for an extension, my tax return according to her would have given me back about $3000.00 for the year. I had always had money coming back and as a buffer preferred it that way. Normally I would apply it to the following years taxes and adjust accordingly. I also let my CPA know exactly what my cash flow was if anything had changed with the contracts I had, so she could make any necessary adjustments to my withholdings. NOW, the CPA that bought her business says that I was going to owe $2,500 for that year, how do you come up with a $5,500 swing from what I've been operating at for 8 years? My numbers have always been where I was owed and I've never been audited by the IRS. I was shocked at the swing and then I remembered a story where 100 CPAs were given a set of numbers and 100 different numbers were figured by each of them on a the tax forms they would have to submit. MY brother actually had a $10,000 swing to the owing side for his business with the same CPA.
SO my question is, if we ourself are responsible for what is filed and it seems nobody comes up with the same number, how can we "honestly" file the forms without knowing for sure if the numbers are correct? Then if I had to read the entire Tax Code it would take me years to do, and if I really wanted to be sure of all that was on my tax forms wouldn't I need to be able to understand the Tax Code in the first place?
Ultimately we are responsible for paying our own taxes and legally have to sign the form before submitting it, even if we don't understand what we are signing. I'm not sure my CPAs understood what they had figured after the fact, but if they can't figure the numbers and I am not given time to read the 80,000 pages of the tax code, how can I be held responsible for it?
It just seemed that there is a legal argument in all this and I'm trying to figure out how or where.
Hell, even Tim "Turbo Tax" Geithner couldn't figure his taxes and he went to college to degree in the field.
Bear with me on the set up.
Now recently I had a CPA retire during the time I had filed for an extension, my tax return according to her would have given me back about $3000.00 for the year. I had always had money coming back and as a buffer preferred it that way. Normally I would apply it to the following years taxes and adjust accordingly. I also let my CPA know exactly what my cash flow was if anything had changed with the contracts I had, so she could make any necessary adjustments to my withholdings. NOW, the CPA that bought her business says that I was going to owe $2,500 for that year, how do you come up with a $5,500 swing from what I've been operating at for 8 years? My numbers have always been where I was owed and I've never been audited by the IRS. I was shocked at the swing and then I remembered a story where 100 CPAs were given a set of numbers and 100 different numbers were figured by each of them on a the tax forms they would have to submit. MY brother actually had a $10,000 swing to the owing side for his business with the same CPA.
SO my question is, if we ourself are responsible for what is filed and it seems nobody comes up with the same number, how can we "honestly" file the forms without knowing for sure if the numbers are correct? Then if I had to read the entire Tax Code it would take me years to do, and if I really wanted to be sure of all that was on my tax forms wouldn't I need to be able to understand the Tax Code in the first place?
Ultimately we are responsible for paying our own taxes and legally have to sign the form before submitting it, even if we don't understand what we are signing. I'm not sure my CPAs understood what they had figured after the fact, but if they can't figure the numbers and I am not given time to read the 80,000 pages of the tax code, how can I be held responsible for it?
It just seemed that there is a legal argument in all this and I'm trying to figure out how or where.
Hell, even Tim "Turbo Tax" Geithner couldn't figure his taxes and he went to college to degree in the field.