Who Can Help You Earn More Profit: A Tax Software or an Accountant? / Tax software vs an Accountant

VIOLA ALLEN for sys-con media writes: Whenever a new task comes up in an organization which is of utmost importance, the responsible authorities end up in a dilemma of whether to accomplish the task by themselves or to recruit a relevant expert who is proficient in the task. Earlier, Certified Public Accountants and other professionals used to manage the accounting and taxation activities, but with the advent of online solutions, there are a number of businesses which are migrating from the traditional mode of tax filing to online filing solutions. Whatever it is, CPAs and tax professionals are very much into the business in spite of regular improvements in the online solutions.

What benefits does a Tax Software yields?

1. Cost

There is no doubt that an online tax filing software package is comparatively cheaper than hiring a personal CPA or Tax filing expert to manage your tax-related operations. There are some websites which offer the tax filing services for free while there are others which charge $10 to $120 for the software package. On the contrary, even if you appoint a Tax expert who is ready to work at low fees, he would also be charging at least $100 from you. Besides this, the most economic CPA would also charge almost double the amount that you invest in an online solution.

2. Speed

Tax software compiles all your documents in a single unit in an hour or so, thus helping you in managing and completing your own tax operations in very less time. On the other hand, even the most trained and experienced CPAs and Tax experts will be able to do the compilation work in several days. After the compilation of documents is complete, they will then be performing the filing task, which might take a week or so.

3. Easy to work

Tax preparation software helps in accomplishing the filing task in almost negligible time with very little efforts. For professionals and small businesses that have limited source of income and make few investments and undergo only a few minor deductions, Tax management via software is the best option as it is almost of negligible use to sit with an accountant to deal with these issues.

What benefits does a Professional Accountant yields?

1. More User-friendly approach

A personal accountant is almost similar to a family doctor. Just as a family doctor with whom you have been associated all these years knows your entire medical history, similarly a personal accountant who has been managing your accounts and taxes since many years, is well aware of your financial condition and your subsequent future plans. Many tax professionals who have been dealing with tax filing all their life, often say that a personal tax expert can extend more suggestions to encourage tax savings as compared to a software-based solution. The amount that you might save from such suggestions of a personal tax expert often exceeds the fee of the taxation specialist. A software will never advice you to save taxes by making investments on the education of your children, however, a personal accountant will extend many such advices to you.

2. More sophisticated software solution

Generally the CPAs and Tax professionals have very sophisticated software to manage tax filing. These software cost around $2000 to $7000, or even more. These software are more authentic and genuine as compared to what is available to people in general. Such advanced software have the capability of easily arranging your details and documents in negligible time in order to fill your forms automatically and correctly. Since the software which the professionals use renders most of the data entry and management tasks automated, the chances of human errors which might occur during tax filing is significantly reduced.

3. Accountants are available to sort your queries throughout the year

Unlike a software-based tax filing solution, an accountant is always available to you all the year round to sort your queries. You can get all your answers not only during the phase of taxation, but also in other months as well.

4. CPA helps in saving time

There are many businessmen who are well-versed with the entire process of tax filling. Numerous big business giants, who manage large business setups, are quite skilled and file the tax themselves. But, isn't it a wastage of time on their part? They can save this time and use it in managing their business. A skilled tax preparer or a CPA is so much accustomed with the system that he hardly takes few hours to complete the entire tax filing procedure whereas other learned men would take many days to complete the same task.

Conclusion

It is solely your thinking to choose between taxation software and a tax professional. If you are familiar with the rules and laws of taxation, you can better understand the gravity of this decision. While you choose between the two solution, keep in mind how complicated your tax operations are. Those whose business setups are small and make small investments can manage their taxes by themselves through personalized software and save a lot, whereas those who have a large business setup need to employ an accountant in order to save taxes.