I did my own taxes for MANY years until I got laid off. The lay-off pay was not lump sum, so when I landed a new job (pretty quickly) I was pulling in two salaries. I decided to use an accountant (via personal referral--not a "chain-store" firm). And I was very happy with the results. I'm not sure I would have noticed that both companies were taking out for Social Security--and that meant I hit the max cap very quickly. And she noticed some other things I could do that helped minimize my taxes. For only $140/year, it was worth the peace of mind.
As an undergrad at Ga. Tech back in 1969-1973, they had a GRADUATE program in C.S., but no undergrad program. I had a roomate who was working on his masters in C.S., but I could not major in that. Also at that time, there was no minor program available (for anything--not just C.S.). So I majored in physics and took a lot of computer courses when I could. Good old Basic, ALGOL, and Fortran for the most part. I even recall an assembly-level simulation language called "Dummiestron" (or Dummystron?).
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I did my own taxes for MANY years until I got laid off. The lay-off pay was not lump sum, so when I landed a new job (pretty quickly) I was pulling in two salaries. I decided to use an accountant (via personal referral--not a "chain-store" firm). And I was very happy with the results. I'm not sure I would have noticed that both companies were taking out for Social Security--and that meant I hit the max cap very quickly. And she noticed some other things I could do that helped minimize my taxes. For only $140/year, it was worth the peace of mind.
As an undergrad at Ga. Tech back in 1969-1973, they had a GRADUATE program in C.S., but no undergrad program. I had a roomate who was working on his masters in C.S., but I could not major in that. Also at that time, there was no minor program available (for anything--not just C.S.). So I majored in physics and took a lot of computer courses when I could. Good old Basic, ALGOL, and Fortran for the most part. I even recall an assembly-level simulation language called "Dummiestron" (or Dummystron?).