It would not be less expensive to have a paid preparer do your returns but it is much less aggravation. My wife routinely questions why I spend so much time fighting with TT when it screws up.
TT still fails in the most basic rule of accounting - do all calculations using two decimal places (pennies) and round the result to the dollar for entry on the tax form. TT rounds all the data first and then calculates the entry, which is virtually guaranteed to cause a rounding error. My Income Statement and Retained earnings from Quickbooks never matches what TT calculates using its flawed method. Overs the years I've learned how to make adjustments in QB that don't affect my real earnings but make QB match TT and let the program continue. In addition, TT still can't import my payroll properly from QB and I have to enter it all manually. It also can't correctly apportion my income between states without my manually loading an additional form and my filling it out in forms mode.
With a professional, you don't have to know all the things that TT asks you that you have no idea about. "Do you have any state corrections?" Hey, if I knew that I'd be a tax pro! I pay for TT to either know what they are or list them a choices like they do with many other functions. Don't depend on the user to know what they might be!
With two corporations and a trust I suspect my bill would be significantly more than the cost of TT. I mail paper instead of paying for e-file when possible to save $. But if the difficulty of fighting with TT to do things correctly increases I may have to rethink my decision.
