How much to you pay your accountant to do your taxes?

[Lance12]

wow ur bills all seem so cheap!

last 2 tax returns for us have been $9K and $6K

almost fell of my chair seeing that $9K one let me tell ya's

thats for 3 companies and a trust plus our personal tax returns......nothing too fancy but the bill certainly was!

Still a hell of a lot less than I pay the lawyers...

 

[monty python]

We pay zero - we are both accountants, and use etax to lodge our returns.
It's seriously not that difficult.
Of course, we are lacking in trade-related skills that would be really great to have!

 

[Louwai]

The biggest accountant bill I've ever had was $4k.
That was for 2 x personal tax + 1 x business + investment portfolio.

For the business he does EVERYTHING, right back to checking off the bank statements, checking the incoming & outgoing invoices & fixing the MYOB data file that I usually manage to severly stuff up.

I contact my accountant constantly during the year. Asking for advice, help, sending me copies of data files that I've lost etc, etc.
I don't get charged for any of that.

His basic individual tax return fee is $120. takes about 1.5hrs.

Top guy. Have been using him for close on 20yrs now.

 

[kathryn d]

The chartered accountant we used cost us a bit under $500 total. Didn't have very many properties then.
What it did cost us, was thousands of dollars trying to fix the mistakes.
An audit..and possibly another audit in the forseeable future. We found that mistake ourselves and have already filed the proper forms to have it rectified. Of course the repayment of the income tax and interest will be huge ($10-$15k)We were required to sign a paper before hand stating if there are any errors etc, he was not responsible, and we had to show that letter to an auditor.

No matter who repares your tax return, make sure you go over it.
You might not know everything, but you should know when something just doesn't feel right.

We now go to well know tax preparer and they have helped us tremendously in trying to fix our mess.This wasn't cheap either.

 

[Propertypassion]

Think big

I am be pleased to be paying large accounting fees, it means I have made it.

Sometimes you need to pay for good advice and I have found a great accountant that is a serious investor, his knowledge is worth payig for. Normaly the low level work is done by a lower rate accountant, you pay a higher rate for the higher level advice.

 

[kathryn d]

I am be pleased to be paying large accounting fees, it means I have made it.

Sometimes you need to pay for good advice and I have found a great accountant that is a serious investor, his knowledge is worth payig for. Normaly the low level work is done by a lower rate accountant, you pay a higher rate for the higher level advice.

Sorry, but I disagree.
I guess it would depend on whether you pay $$ per property, and you have lots?
The price you are charged does not always equal quality advice/ services received.

 

[neil100]

update: $350 for the 09/10 FY ($400, because i tipped $50)

3 IPs + Work + small share holding

That seems pretty good.

I just finished mine, which was $770 and covered myself and wife's PAYG + 2 IP's with unequal split.

 

[beachgurl]

Our bill last year was $4400 for 2 companies including a trust, 8 IPs and our personal taxes. We give the accountant a detailed spreadsheet and he just has to do data entry. Told us we were getting a discount last yr as one of our companies ran at a loss so hate to think what we will be charged this year.