Pilot Taxes

[Truckdriver]

I think everyone who doesn't own a business should do their own taxes. They are simple to do and if you spend a couple hours per year researching the changes, it is a piece of cake. It also informs you as to how the tax system works and I think as Americans we should all know that.

If however, you would rather slit your wrists than do taxes I would pay someone who has a history of doing taxes specifically for pilots. Most CPA's have no clue how to correctly figure out your perdiem amount if you itemize. If you only need to figure out your perdiem issue to plug into TurboTax try the following site. This guy is good at what he does, if you don't want to do it yourself.

http://www.pdcalc.com/Public/Default.aspx

I have a spreadsheet that I use to keep track of my Perdiem. At the end of each month I simply type the overnights I had on each trip along with the amount from the CONUS list. I tally them up and at the end of the year I add all 12 months up. It takes about 10 minutes per month and I usually do it on an overnight. You take that figure along with what you were paid in perdiem and plug it into form 2106 or Turbo Tax and your done. For most lineholders this will get you a couple grand extra in writeoffs if you itemize.

 

[n6604f]

www.Aircrewtaxes.com

Shea is the owner/CPA and Pilot. Does a great job!!!

IMHO

 

[Cookie Monster]

ezperdiem.com

I used it last year and it was easy and helpful. I will try it again this year. They also have calculators for typical pilot expenses. Enter your data and transfer the numbers to turbo tax. Easy.

 

[135Drvr]

I've used TAX CREW for the past several years and am very pleased with them. Good product at a resonable price.

http://mytaxcrew.com/services.php

 

[pipe]

www.jcherrenco.com

In STL. John is an AA Capt and he and his wife have been doing pilot taxes for about 30 years. I've run TurboTax parallel and they did better.

Got a letter from the IRS a few years back stating that I owed them another $1900. Called Herren and they said send them the letter and they'd take care of it. Called back a couple of days later and the matter was closed (IRS was, of course, wrong).

I've been using them for about 8 years.

PIPE

 

[Thedude]

I just finished a state audit and I was represented by Turbo Tax's Tax Audit Defense. They assigned a real CPA (out of California) to my case.

The problem is they will assign you a rep and most of them don't understand aviation. My first go-round with 'em I got lucky and got a guy that knew the ends and outs (for the most part) of international per diem. The second guy I got was a blithering idiot. My advice is, get a descent aviation tax guy.