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Asianmamacita t1_je7wiqm wrote

You mentioned that they help you file taxes and do not file on your behalf. Are you sure they are not a ghost preparer?

“By law, anyone who is paid to prepare or assists in preparing federal tax returns must have a valid Preparer Tax Identification Number, or PTIN. Paid preparers must sign and include their PTIN on the return.”

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/beware-of-ghost-preparers-who-dont-sign-tax-returns

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one-eye-owl OP t1_je87pir wrote

I looked through the website and what we were told this person was certified but i'm retrieving my paper work back tomorrow and going to file an extension

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creative_usr_name t1_je8adex wrote

Be aware an extension does not mean you get an extension on when you need to pay your taxes, you still need to make an estimate and pay by tax day. The extension is only for filing the return.

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Asianmamacita t1_je8c9kw wrote

Yes, that’s something people don’t get about extension. It doesn’t extend the time to pay.

As for this post, If the tax preparer is incredibly off on their number, they might not owe anything or potentially already safe harbored based on 2021.

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ynotfoster t1_je8bmdz wrote

Please come back and let us know what you find out. This is rather intriguing.

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BornElephant2619 t1_je8ahrr wrote

Sometimes you get bad accountants. My husband hired one to do ours the first year we were married and we owed sooo much money. We took it to another accountant who said, "well yeah, they didn't do any of your deductions..." She charged us half of what the other guy had and we owed less than 1/10th of what the other person had told us. It was absolutely infuriating but a lesson learned.

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jinsaku t1_je8ay3y wrote

My first CPA is serving a 20 year jail sentence for embezzlement. My current CPA firm is awesome.

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BornElephant2619 t1_je8bga1 wrote

Oh gosh. That's kinda crazy, imagine losing 20 years of your life because you got greedy ... I don't think this guy gave enough effort to figure out how to embezzle. He charged us $300 (16 years ago) to do less than basic turbo tax would have. He had his own gig going.

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Asianmamacita t1_je8amvd wrote

Yes tax preparers can be bad but they should still be capable of efiling for you. So the fact that he does not file for them yet “helps” them makes me think it’s a ghost preparer

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Weed_Me_Up t1_je8k07f wrote

Or ours..... This was the year we had our first child so we knew we were gonna get some money back.

Friend hooked us up with a shady ass accountant. We got back more than 15k that year!

Well about 5 years later we got audited. Tried to get in touch with her, but she was in federal prison for fraud lol.

We ended up paying about 2 or 3k back to IRS so wasnt too bad

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Bugle_Boy_Jeans t1_je8icxu wrote

Lmao. A "ghost preparer" isn't going to tell you you owe 25k! That's just absurd. That totally undermines the whole premise of a "ghost preparer".

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