Income Tax Preparation: How Much Does a "Typical" Client Pay?

A survey of 8,000 tax preparers over a two-year period found that the average charge for a Form 1040 plus Schedule A plus state tax return was $229; a return without the itemizing of deduction run exactly $100 less. "Large" firms (those with over $400,000 in gross income) charged almost double ($305 vs. $174) what "tiny" firms (firms with gross income under $50K) charged. Geographic region also mattered, with Pacific firms at the high at $292 and West South Central (Tennessee plus three other states) at the low end of $193. Average charge per type of return varied dramatically from $58 for a Form 940 (unemployment) to over $2,000 for a Form 706 (estate tax). Credentials of preparers surveyed varied with some respondents clearly having more than one credential. Among credentials included: about half of respondents were EAs and about a quarter were CPAs.

The survey results were fascinating--my biggest surprise was the relatively low cost of tax preparation. Clearly, professional tax preparation (for this sentence, I will use a definition closer to Robert Flach than Peter Pappas) is a real value!