In Hannah Steiman's second year as a communications manager for a nonprofit, she and her husband had about the same income and write-offs as before. She was sure they should again receive a refund. But the software program was insistent: They owed.
"When we looked into it, we found out that we could hire an accountant for under $300, which seemed very reasonable and much cheaper than I expected," says Ms. Steiman, who is now an MBA student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, in an e-mail. "Ultimately, we received a return of about $1,500, so the accountant paid for himself many times over."
Steiman says she wishes she'd stopped using tax software sooner because she fears she might have been overpaying for years. Those who harbor similar concerns might consult a tax pro, at least once every few years, even if they prefer to do their own taxes most of the time.
