I found the consumer facing "tax professionals" to be indifferent and apparently, nearly incompetent. Like, I walked into a tax office in my neighborhood and the certified dude could not answer a question without typing it into the Search Box on his computer.

In contrast, I found Gemini to be pretty good at directing me to verify my own answers at IRS.gov. It was able to answer correctly but of course, Gemini is not a tax attorney so I did need to pore over the official documents myself.

IRS.gov is really good about documenting everything in plain, accessible English. Gemini is really good about surfacing summaries and overviews and answering thorny questions, that would probably cost $$$ from a CPA.

IRS.gov is perhaps the agency that has the most to offer the consumer in the Information Age with an open web. I don't know how people accessed IRS Publications before website downloads, but today it's easy as pie for IRS to just blat out all their info and their website is really easy to use. It's almost as if they want to empower the taxpayer to know how to file a good return and pay them the correct amounts...

I still used commercial tax software to produce the return; my situation is not complex but essentially I just paid for convenience + peace of mind.