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Transitioning from CPAs to TurboTax

For a person transitioning from CPA tax preparation to self- tax preparation with TurboTax, what tips, words of advice, words of insight would you have?

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1 Reply
DawnC
Employee Tax Expert

Transitioning from CPAs to TurboTax

Have the CPA give you all supporting worksheets and supplemental schedules for the previous year's return.   You may need to pay a fee, but having a complete tax file is necessary.   Any carryover amounts and depreciation information are essential.  

 

You might want to prepare a previous year return (that matches the last return filed by your CPA) in TurboTax so you have a complete tax file to transfer in the year you wish to start preparing your own return(s).   

 

Transferring in previous year's data:

 

TurboTax can save your tax return as a tax data file (also called a tax file, data file, or a .tax file) and as a Portable Document Format (PDF).

 

  • Your tax data file can be opened, read, and edited in TurboTax.
  • Your PDF is a noneditable "snapshot" of your tax return that can be opened, read, and printed in a PDF viewer program.

TurboTax can only import basic info like name and address from a PDF.  Everything else needs to be entered manually if you do not have a tax data file.    Tax Data File vs PDF

 

Video - Transferring last year's info

 

See TurboTax Online vs Desktop from Getting Started with TurboTax

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