<prompt> Human: My husband and I got married and had a child in 2017. He has given his W2s and all other necessary information to a woman in Texas to file his taxes for the last 2 years and it has gone well. Since my taxes are involved now, I tried to do some research on the lady. Cant find anything about her that would lead me to believe that she is in business as an accountant or anything legit that would involve tax preparation. I did search her on the IRS database. We now live in Washington state and my husband wants to mail all of our familys information to her for our taxes this year. Is this a dumb thing to do? Im uneasy about it and Im not sure if I should be or not.  <response>: On the previous returns she prepared, is the Preparer section filled in at the bottom of Page 2 of the 1040 form under the place where the taxpayer and spose sign? Does she have a PTIN? A PTIN is all you need to be a legitimate paid preparer. There are people with designations and letters after their names EA or CPA and there are people with no designations whove done taxes for years and know what theyre doing and there are people who dont know what theyre doing. No real way to tell from this where she falls. 