So You’re Baffled? 50 Tax Pros Tote Up 50 Wrong Answers

Fifty professional tax-return preparers came up with 50 different answers when asked to calculate the federal taxes of a hypothetical family, Money magazine reported today.

The professionals’ answers ranged from $12,359 to $35,813--an even worse performance than a year ago.

The accountant who designed the test said the correct tax was $23,393, but the law is so confusing that several correct answers were possible, Money said. Ten of the 50 preparers made no major mistakes but computed the family’s taxes as high as $24,493.

“The abundance of mistakes our test turned up suggests that pros are nowhere near as knowledgeable about the tax law as they are supposed to be,” Money said in its March issue.