After the usual place my wife has our taxes done epically failed, I decided to seek out someone local (that *wasn't* H&R Block). I picked Tax Services Plus.
We went in for our appointment, presented our mountain of paperwork (including my interesting stock sales...which was the failure point for the other place). Crystal Hawley took careful notes, ran the figures and gave us an estimate of both how much it'd cost to get our taxes done as well as how much we could hope to get back. She wasn't *completely* certain of the stock sale, however, and said she'd double check *before* filing.
She worked with the rest of the people in the office (and even a trusted financial adviser with another company!) and they finally deciphered the voodoo magic that E*Trade did with my stocks, and armed with this extra knowledge, managed to almost DOUBLE the refund we're getting. Hooray for not getting taxed *twice* on something!
The fees they charged were quite fair, in my opinion. They don't try to nickle and dime you to death, and they didn't charge anything extra for trying to figure out my stock sale taxes, as other places wanted to do.
We *will* be going back from here out to get our taxes done here! read more