Re: [gentoo-nfp] [Discussion and vote] Hire CPA for Fiscal 2020 taxes

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 7:08 AM Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:
>
> FY2016: $12.5k
> FY2017: $11.5k
> FY2018: $23k
>
> So FY2019 should be similar.
>
> If the price remained at $1.5k a year, this would be around 7% of cash
> donations.  Isn't this a bit much?

I have a relative who is part of an accounting business and I suspect
they wouldn't even talk to a small business for less than $1k.  Being
a small organization isn't super-efficient - the compliance
requirements are the same as a medium-sized one and the money
available is less.

I do my own taxes, and it would probably cost me hundreds of dollars
to pay somebody else to do it for me, despite this not really being
hard for me to do.  Some of that is risk - I already know my finances
and I collect my data in a way that makes it easier to deal with, and
I don't have any risk that somebody else left something out which gets
me in trouble.  A CPA has liability/insurance/etc and they have to
carefully go through your records to make sure they look complete and
gather data.  They also have to deal with billing/taxes/etc since
money is changing hands.

I guess a CS analogy would be the difference between writing a simple
shell script vs hiring somebody else to write a simple shell script -
just think of the questions you'd ask in designing such a thing to
make sure that you're eliciting any hidden requirements, and how much
more effort it takes to do it right vs what you'd just cobble together
for yourself.  Then throw a layer of contracts/billing/etc on top of
that.

Now, certainly the cost to maintain the books ought to be less than
the cost to initially get them cleaned up.  However, the provider
might have been being generous with their rate or treating us as a
loss-leader.

We could DIY it, but IMO that is REALLY risky given our track record.
I think at the very least we should have a few solid years behind us
and multiple people familiar with the process who are eager to take
something like this on before risking that.  Then keep in mind the
first time you have to pick up the phone to call in help you're going
to get the consulting rate.

-- 
Rich