Technically I am an accountant, but I'm no longer a tax preparer. I have prepared taxes before, mostly for individuals and small businesses with some trust and fiduciaries.
This isn't in respose to the OP in particular as I don't wish to get into the details of the situation and say something that could mislead him. His situation takes more care and diligence than I'm able to provide, especially in a forum posting.
That said:
1. They don't make income tax laws ridiculous to keep anyone employed. They do this nonsense on their own, we're not considered. The fact it makes my degree worth more is an unfair consequence (one of a handful that's unfair in my favor).
2. For the average person whose only income is their employment, it's really not that hard at all to file income tax in America. You don't even have to read and follow instructions if you're content to let software to all the thinking for you (and you honestly might as well in this case).
Many people can file on a form called the 1040 EZ that's ridiculously simple. Now I personally can't use the 1040 EZ form for a number of reasons, but even the long form isn't too hard.
3. In America, do you need a paid preparer or not?
I've seen people who honestly did not strictly need an accountant. But it was worth getting their time back to them; it's like do you change your oil yourself or have a mechanic do it.
If you've had a significant event where the status of assets is unknown, you may actually need a tax attorney instead. I can tell you accountants are cheaper. The best arrangements are when an attorney and an accountant have a working relationship and can refer clients to each other. The situation where the attorney creates the trust and the accountant does the returns in subsequent years for example is usually the most beneficial for the client.
People who have a trust, do anything like a home office that requires special rules, track depreciation, or have a reasonably complicated entity, etc. generally are better of hiring it done. I have met some people who are in these situations who do it themselves, relishing it like a hobby, but that's a small handful of INTJ extremists. Most people would rather be taking a nap or something.
Also you have the situation where you have four partners in a venture. It's good for the common trust if a (competent) neutral party does the tax returns.
4. Software - it's good in extremely simple situations or situations with only modest complexity. In aids in preparation and stops mathematical mistakes but it doesn't give you the judgment or knowledge. The problem I have with most software is twofold:
A - It does not educate the user. I realize part of this is people don't WANT to be educated to some extent. Fair enough but it still bugs me because the publisher is just trying to keep you dependent on their product.
B - In situations requiring any judgment, interpretation, or common sense it is often not evident where to put the number to the casual user. I had a case where a woman got an early withdrawal from her 401k three years in a row and Turbotax didn't calculate the penalty correctly because the input for this activity wasn't particularly obvious. She comes home one day and gets a mailbox full of nasty, nasty form letters...
It was obvious to me what happened once I saw the file and looked at her old returns, glaringly so, but she had no way of knowing that because she didn't have my perspective. We got her straightened out, she only owed the IRS $520 not the ridiculous amount they were demanding.
It's the GIGO problem. I went to a Turbotax seminar once and they gave us a false person with a long list of complications to do a tax return for. I got this fake person a $4500 refund (the answer we were supposed to get), while the next closest person only got to $2700. Bear in mind this was the same software, same screens same prompts, but because I knew what kinds of things to look for it made all the difference.
Look the software works, it does arithmetic better than I can, but it doesn't understand nuance and it can't read for you.
5. Just be careful, there's a lot of bad advice out there and I've heard things that just make me cringe because, well they're just so wrong it's sad. A lot of it comes from the H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, Liberty Tax type services (though those people do a good job sometimes too, it depends on who is working on your return). Mistakes happen, but you want someone who is not focused on getting you the biggest return you want someone who cares about accuracy and your overall well being.
There's a certain mercenary attitude out there to aggressively "write off" as much as possible, to promise large returns, etc. Be extremely wary of any place that makes most of its money making short term loans against income tax refund checks. Be extremely wary of places that brag about finding deductions other places "missed". You need good judgment and care on your side not conflicts of interest.
Overall:
I feel unless you're looking at some kind of self employment or other situation where it gets interesting sometimes, most people can navigate the American income tax system. Employers generally pay most of the actual cost of tax preparation for most individuals by issuing W-2s.
For most of your other income you'll typically get a 1099 that'll do most of the work for you.
That said yes it's ridiculously, ridiculously convoluted. It gets silly in a hurry, really really silly. There is so much information, you don't know how silly it is until you start using databases to research past IRS rulings on niche situations...
I am no longer a PTIN holder and haven't done taxes in years, none of this is professional advice.
