[ghaff]

At some point, the ubiquity of shopping mall accountants (e.g. H&R Block) convinced a lot of people that they were idiots to do their own taxes by hand. Personally I piggybacked off my parents' accountant and still use the same firm. At this point, it almost certainly makes sense for me to use an accountant but I could probably have just used tax software for less money at least for a time.