[HaloZero]

I volunteer with VITA and do taxes a lot but not a full time accountant. I've been doing my own taxes for years.

I would say you need your own accountant and not software if:

1) You have complexities involving trusts/inheritance

2) Anything involving crypto (this is just a grey area to me and things change)

3) Anything that sounds more complex than anything above.

If you're getting a bunch of 1099-DIVs/INT & W2/W9s it's not super complex.

[jcranmer]

4) You run your own business.

5) Foreign income, other than simple investment income (e.g., own stocks in foreign companies).

[itake]

6) your employer submits incorrect w2s

[dmoy]

That's pretty easy to handle with freetaxusa, at least it was the last two times I did it

[roflyear]

Yeah. When you start your own business, that should be when you talk to an accountant. Well, maybe as soon as you think you'll make enough money to pay taxes. It saves you a world of heartache.

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

Crypto is simple. Anything mined/airdroped is ordinary income, anything bought and later sold is capital gains.

[daveguy]

If you held it for over year. Otherwise it's income of sale price - cost basis. Don't know about fees. I'm not an accountant, but I do know you have to hold an asset for at least 1 yr to count it as capital gains.

[drdec]

> I do know you have to hold an asset for at least 1 yr to count it as capital gains.

That is not true. Perhaps what you mean is that capital gains on assets held less than a year are taxed at a different rate than capital gains on assets held longer than a year?

Don't mean to get pedantic but I didn't want someone to read your comment and think that they owe no taxes on short-term capital gains. (What a crazy tax incentive that would be!)

[EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK]

less than a year is called short term capital gains, it's basically same as ordinary income, except can be negative )