I don't have the simplest financial life. Our MFJ filing has two children, 401ks, HSA, IRAs, etc. Last year we also sold a rental property in the last week of December 2025.
We have been working with a CPA for like 3-4 years. Most years I get back a few thousand as a refund. This time though, before the January 15 year end, he recommended I send the IRS and my state thousands of dollars in an estimated tax payment (related to the rental property sale). But now that he's finished my return he says we're getting it all back. We even did a check-in half-way through 2025 to make sure we were on the right track with our withholding and whatnot.
The return is like $10,000+ of money. I'm a little annoyed that I gave the government this money honestly. Granted, it wasn’t for very long, ~2 months or so, but still… why…
I just want to know — is this experience normal when working with a CPA? Should I be expecting a CPA to be able to guide my finances to a <$1000 refund? I pay this CPA like $1200 for his services, I just kinda expect he'd be able to calculate things more precisely, but if I'm overreacting and expecting too much, please let me know and I'll stfu.
Should a CPA be able to make sure that you minimize your return each year?
byu/aceshades intax
Posted by aceshades
9 Comments
Not necessarily. There can be a hundred reasons it went sideways. Ask him to get into the 2 year comparison and find the culprit. New laws alone, aside from life changes, can make worlds of difference.
sounds like a conversation with the CPA – get some understanding of his reasoning
You sold a rental the last week of December and 4th quarter estimates were due 1/15/26. That’s not much time to get you an estimate and he was probably being very conservative especially if he didn’t have all the detail. Would you rather have paid no estimate and now owe $10k?
In my experience most CPA are just data entry. Finding a tax strategist is harder.
He can only calculate an estimated tax payment based on what you give him as information. Garbage in, garbage out.
If you didn’t give him the appropriate cost basis or closing cost for the sale of your rental property he’d have no idea how much the gain would be taxed at. Better to send in an estimated tax payment and get it back versus potentially having underpayment penalties and interest and owing a ton by 4/15.
I’d drop you as a client.
This guy is why no one wants to deal with individual returns.
Obviously the rental property sale in December changed your tax situation for the year so I’m not sure why your “check in half way through 2025” matters here. I’m guessing he didn’t have all the details about the sale in January so he told you to make a payment to help you avoid penalties/owing money knowing you’d get it back in a couple of months if it wasn’t needed. Playing it conservative basically. Accountants can’t act on information they don’t have yet.
