If you are not confident doing your taxes yourself, you could try a local HR Block office. Compared to DIY, they will be pricey, too, but they should be a lot less than $2,500 for the relatively simple return you are describing.
If you do want to try it yourself, you have lots of good tips and ideas in this thread for how to go about learning, etc. My other suggestion if you're going to DIY, is start early. You should have all or most of your tax forms sometime in February. Get started on your DIY tax prep then, and then come here and ask questions as needed. Don't wait until late March or early April to start. If you get going in February, you should have plenty of time to ask questions, do what learning you need to do, and complete your DIY taxes.
A lot of the DIY tax prep software companies (HR Block, TaxAct, etc) also have options to ask them questions, depending on what package you buy. But start here at Bogleheads first, there are plenty of DIY tax enthusiasts here, and quite a few of them are interested in helping you learn well enough to do it on your own.
I made the jump to DIY myself when I got tired of handing over my forms to the tax preparer at HR Block year after year, sitting in the office and watching them enter the info, and then catching their mistakes or omissions. The first year I did DIY, I made sure to start early enough in the tax season so I could still go back to a paid HR Block preparer if needed, but I didn't need to. I took over my parents tax prep as well for the last few years they were alive, and thus saved the three of us several thousand dollars in tax prep fees over the years by doing so.
If you do want to try it yourself, you have lots of good tips and ideas in this thread for how to go about learning, etc. My other suggestion if you're going to DIY, is start early. You should have all or most of your tax forms sometime in February. Get started on your DIY tax prep then, and then come here and ask questions as needed. Don't wait until late March or early April to start. If you get going in February, you should have plenty of time to ask questions, do what learning you need to do, and complete your DIY taxes.
A lot of the DIY tax prep software companies (HR Block, TaxAct, etc) also have options to ask them questions, depending on what package you buy. But start here at Bogleheads first, there are plenty of DIY tax enthusiasts here, and quite a few of them are interested in helping you learn well enough to do it on your own.
I made the jump to DIY myself when I got tired of handing over my forms to the tax preparer at HR Block year after year, sitting in the office and watching them enter the info, and then catching their mistakes or omissions. The first year I did DIY, I made sure to start early enough in the tax season so I could still go back to a paid HR Block preparer if needed, but I didn't need to. I took over my parents tax prep as well for the last few years they were alive, and thus saved the three of us several thousand dollars in tax prep fees over the years by doing so.
Statistics: Posted by clip651 — Fri Nov 07, 2025 10:38 pm — Replies 26 — Views 2794