Is $1,600 for tax filing or $3,000 for tax advisory services reasonable when hiring a CPA for the first time?

Those prices are actually pretty reasonable for your situation, which has several complex elements. Multi-state income, self-employment, capital gains, real estate transactions, and state relocation all create additional complexity that requires expertise to handle properly. The $1,600 filing fee is fair market value for tax preparation with your circumstances. The $3,000 advisory package offers significantly more value if you can afford it, especially since you haven't been paying income tax on your self-employment earnings. A CPA providing year-round guidance can help you set up proper quarterly estimated payments (which should include income tax, not just Medicare/SS), identify business deductions you might be missing, and create a tax strategy that could save you much more than the $1,400 difference. Given the $60,000 tax bill you're facing, proper planning could potentially save you thousands going forward. I'd recommend the advisory service in your case because it sounds like you need ongoing tax guidance, not just filing help.

After reading your situation, I wanted to share my experience with taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) which was super helpful with my similarly complex tax situation. My wife and I also have multi-state income and I'm self-employed, plus we had a house sale last year. What I like is that they use AI to analyze all your tax documents and find deductions that most CPAs might miss. I uploaded our docs, including the sale paperwork for our house and my business expense records, and it identified several deductions I had no idea about! They also have tax pros who review everything, so you get both the AI accuracy and human expertise. They helped me properly categorize my business expenses and set up my quarterly tax payments correctly - sounds like that would help you since you mentioned only paying Medicare/SS on your self-employment income.

I was really skeptical about AI tax services like the one I mentioned earlier, but I decided to try taxr.ai after our conversation. Honestly, I'm shocked at how good it was. I uploaded all our documents (we also had multi-state income and some investment sales), and it found over $4,300 in deductions my previous accountant had missed last year! What really surprised me was how it handled our rental property depreciation - apparently we'd been calculating it wrong for years. Their human tax pro explained everything clearly and set up a proper system for my self-employment quarterly payments that includes actual income tax estimates, not just the SE tax. The interface was super easy to use and they were really responsive when I had questions. Much better experience than I expected, especially for complex situations.

If you're dealing with that $60k tax bill, you probably should try calling the IRS directly to discuss payment options... but good luck getting through! I spent 3 hours on hold last month before giving up. Then I found Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) and it completely changed my experience. They have this service that gets you connected to an actual IRS agent quickly - you can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c. I was honestly shocked when I got through to a real person in under 15 minutes after weeks of failed attempts. The IRS agent I spoke with helped me set up a payment plan for my back taxes with much lower penalties than I expected. They can work with you on that $60k bill, but you need to actually reach them first, which is where Claimyr made all the difference for me.

I need to apologize for calling BS on Claimyr. After our exchange, I was still dealing with a tax notice problem and couldn't get through to the IRS after trying for DAYS. Out of desperation, I tried the service and it actually worked exactly as described. Got connected to an IRS rep in about 17 minutes, and they helped me sort out the notice I'd been stressing about for weeks. The agent even helped me understand some options for handling my tax payment that my previous accountant never mentioned. Would have saved myself a lot of headaches if I'd been less skeptical! Sometimes the solutions that sound too good to be true actually work. Still think the CPA prices the original poster mentioned are reasonable though - especially with their complicated situation.

Another thing to consider when looking at CPA prices - ask exactly what's included in both packages. For $1,600 filing only vs $3,000 advisory, make sure you know: - Does the filing package include all state returns for those 4-6 states? - Does advisory include tax planning meetings? How many per year? - Will they represent you in case of audit? (This is HUGE) - Do they help with quarterly estimates calculations? - Will they file extensions if needed at no extra cost? - Do they have expertise in your specific business type? I was quoted similar prices last year and went with the cheaper option, but ended up paying more in add-on fees when things got complicated. The comprehensive package usually ends up being better value if you have a complex situation like yours.

Has anyone considered that $60,000 tax bill might be wrong? Turbotax is good but it can mess up with complex situations like this. My wife and I got hit with a huge bill using turbotax last year but when a CPA looked at it, they found turbotax had double-counted some income and missed several deductions. Our actual bill was less than half what turbotax calculated!