One of the unusual perks offered by my husband’s employer is that they will pay for a CPA to do our taxes the first year. Their reasoning? His employer paid for our relocation to the Bay Area, but rather than give us a lump sum to cover the expenses or cash reimbursement, the company’s policy is to pay for all relocation expenses and then “gross up” the total to cover any taxes, which is then included in the W-2 form. In case the relocation amount is determined to be insufficient to cover the taxes on it, the company will actually make an adjustment and gross up the relocation amount even further to cover any remaining taxes.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard of a company offering a benefit like this to its employees. Granted, it’s only offered the first year, but they’ve scheduled CPAs from two local firms (one from Ernst & Young) to come to to campus every day for two weeks so that we can set up an appointment conveniently. Alternatively, the company will reimburse us up to $500 if we decide to use our own CPA. The only potential risk is that they can’t guarantee our taxes will be filed in time, so there’s always a possibility that we’ll have to file for an extension.
Still, we’ve decided to utilize this service (it’s free, and it’s the easiest way to make sure we don’t get stuck with a bill for paying extra taxes on the relo) and will have to deliver all our documents promptly to the CPA on the day of our appointment. We don’t own a house, and our tax situation has always been pretty straightforward, so I’m hoping there won’t be any complications.
Honestly, I’m a bit of a control freak when it comes to personal finances and have been dutifully using TaxCut to file the past 5 years. I must be a real geek to feel awkward giving what’s normally considered an onerous task over to an expert to do for free!
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Anandi
Deloitte used to do this for us when I worked there, if you worked on a project for more than a year because that screws up the tax situation somehow.
They’d also file the state return for the state you worked in (every year) if it was different from your home state.
That was nice. I even got a gorgeous folder with all of the documents neatly copied after they were done.
Getting married has a nice perk too – now TJ does both of our taxes. I hate it, esp now with the house and stuff.