CPA price for HOA tax prep

A CPA in North Carolina just quoted $700 to prepare our federal form 1120-H and state tax filings. We have no amenities, no outside income, and only about $300 in interest income. In other words, I would think our tax prep should be simple and cost much less than $700. Last year the same firm charged $515 for those filings plus consulting time to help my self-managed HOA get started. Does this rate sound high or about right to you, in 2023?

Thanks!
Susan
treasurer of a small townhome HOA

In case you or anyone in your association want(s) to tackle it without outside tax services:

Form 1120-H is a one page form, and the IRS providers detailed instructions: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1120h.pdf

You might be able to use that IRS publication plus your Association's past filings as examples to be able to doing the form going forward. Even if you made a mistake, with such a low tax requirement I doubt the IRS would even notice it and if the IRS did, any penalty would likely be lower than what your are paying a provider, so it would be a fruitful exercise.

While the Fed form, 1120-H is only one page long, other states, unlike Texas, do collect state income taxes. While the 1120-H might 5 minutes, our 100 and 199 take a lot longer than that. You also never look at what a personal income return prep costs and a corporate tax return costs.

Thanks everybody! I thought $700 was outrageous - glad to hear it's not the new normal. This HOA will find another way to get these taxes done.

The 1120-H doesn't scare me, but I'm not so sure about the North Carolina C Corp return. I may end up using TurboTax for Small Business, but I'm a bit apprehensive. Mostly my fear is of corporate tax jargon and having to research whether the questions apply to us.

Has anybody else used TurboTax for their HOA's 1120-H and state filing? Was the state portion tricky or easy to understand?

Do you really want to take that risk personally if the numbers filed with the state are incorrect>

Not especially, but so far the CPAs I've contacted are all booked up for this tax season. All we have to report is about $300 in interest income, which shouldn't be hard. If we had a pool or a clubhouse that we rented out for parties to non-residents, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 ft pole. In 2022 all we did was collect dues, no fines, and pay vendors for routine operating expenses. It *should* be really boring and easy, but if I can get a CPA to take it, I will.

Just curious what quotes everyone is getting for an audit? To answer your question, our cpa does our taxes for $300/yr which hasn’t changed in years. However the audit rate increased.