<prompt> Human: Theres always a ton of alleged claims that going to a tax professional whether CPA or not is better than do it yourself DIY.My question is. What are some examples of situations the professional would catch with their softwareexperience that the person doing it themselves wouldnt? Assuming they use common software like Taxact, Turbotax, etc.Is it all anecdotal feel good or is there an actual reason for going with the pro?  <response>: Generally speaking, the software will cover almost all common andor easy cases.IMO the most common place where the pro comes in in terms of tax prep are in some self-employment situations where it can be more challenging to know all of the rules there are a lot of rules of what can be deducted, how you do it, etc. I think someone who has a 1040EZ and pays for tax prep is wasting their money, but Id never say that about most Schedule Cs or C-EZs. In some cases you have no expenses, so no issues there DIYing it.I think the bigger place where tax pros can help though is in tax planning. Filling out the forms is easy, once the year is done and all tax-relevant decisions have been made -- just follow the directions. But there are things you can do to situate yourself better in the future. Some are obvious e.g. suppose you have a ton of capital gains you want to realize -- maybe you want to spread that over two years but theres a lot of personalized advice they can potentially provide in some situations.Thats my take anyway... with the disclaimer that Ive never actually been to one. :- That will change once I get enough VXUS that Im over the de minimus thing where I can just report my dividends on the 1040... Form 1116s foreign tax credit instructions about made my brain explode. :- 