{"id":975,"date":"2013-02-20T05:10:55","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T17:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"\/real-cost-hiring-tax-preparer"},"modified":"2025-02-11T02:24:49","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T10:24:49","slug":"real-cost-hiring-tax-preparer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/en\/real-cost-hiring-tax-preparer\/","title":{"rendered":"The real cost of hiring a tax preparer"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>If a tax professional catches even one deduction or credit a taxpayer would have missed, it can easily justify the cost. <\/h3>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>NEW YORK (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.MainStreet.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">MainStreet<\/a>) &mdash; The National Society of Accountants reports that the average cost of hiring a tax professional to prepare your Form 1040 with a Schedule A and state tax return is $246. Rates for non-itemized returns are also low, as the average cost to prepare a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/articles\/file-income-tax-form-1040\" target=\"_blank\">Form 1040<\/a> and state return without itemized deductions being only $143.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/file-taxes-online\" style=\"font-size: 13.008px; line-height: 20.0063px;\"><strong><span style=\"color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">&gt;&gt;<\/span>&nbsp;<span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 255);\">Start Your FREE E-file<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If a tax professional can catch even one deduction or credit a taxpayer would otherwise have missed, it can easily pay for the tax preparation fee.<\/p>\n<p>This information is a result of the society&rsquo;s biennial survey of tax preparers. The tax and accounting firms surveyed were largely owners, principals and partners of local &ldquo;Main Street&rdquo; companies with an average of more than 26 years of experience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The survey also reported the average fees for preparing other tax forms:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>$205&nbsp;<\/b>for a Form 1040 Schedule C (sole proprietor)<\/li>\n<li><b>$556&nbsp;<\/b>for a Form 1065 (partnership)<\/li>\n<li><b>$759&nbsp;<\/b>for a Form 1120 (corporation)<\/li>\n<li><b>$717&nbsp;<\/b>for a Form 1120S (S corporation)<\/li>\n<li><b>$468&nbsp;<\/b>for a Form 1041 (estate or trust)<\/li>\n<li><b>$628&nbsp;<\/b>for a Form 990 (tax exempt)<\/li>\n<li><b>$59&nbsp;<\/b>for a Form 940 (federal unemployment)<\/li>\n<li><b>$134&nbsp;<\/b>for Schedule D (gains and losses)<\/li>\n<li><b>$155&nbsp;<\/b>for Schedule E (rental)<\/li>\n<li><b>$185&nbsp;<\/b>for Schedule F (farm)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>As one would expect, fees vary by region, firm size, population and economic strength of an area. The average fee for a Form 1040 with Schedule A and a state tax return in the various sections of the U.S. are:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>$237<\/b>&nbsp;in New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont)<\/li>\n<li><b>$258<\/b>&nbsp;in the Middle Atlantic (New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania)<\/li>\n<li><b>$253<\/b>&nbsp;in the South Atlantic (Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia)<\/li>\n<li><b>$279<\/b>&nbsp;in the East South Central (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee)<\/li>\n<li><b>$226<\/b>&nbsp;in the West South Central (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas)<\/li>\n<li><b>$225<\/b>&nbsp;in the East North Central (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin)<\/li>\n<li><b>$196<\/b>&nbsp;in the West North Central (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota)<\/li>\n<li><b>$233<\/b>&nbsp;in the Mountain area (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming)<\/li>\n<li><b>$288<\/b>&nbsp;in the Pacific area (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Nearly 90 percent of firms surveyed offer prospective clients a free initial consultation. And 60 percent do not require payment until returns are completed and clients are satisfied.<\/p>\n<p>These fees assume a taxpayer has gathered and organized all necessary information. The less organized the client, the greater the fee.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If a tax professional catches even one deduction or credit a taxpayer would have missed, it can easily justify the cost. NEW YORK (MainStreet) &mdash; The National Society of Accountants reports that the average cost of hiring a tax professional to prepare your Form 1040 with a Schedule A and state tax return is $246. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tax-preparation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11276,"href":"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions\/11276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}