I would say budget $3000 for beginners.

Bump that to at least $10,000 if you wind up putting down a retainer for a tax lawyer.

But CPAs are just as excited to research the same stuff and can give you the same answers, and their sign off on some activities can have some weight.

It gets easier to rationalize when you follow my simple mantra: do things worth litigating over.

Rules out lots of other ways to waste your time.

How do you find one that won’t get you into a huge costly mess with the irs?

I typically ask the CPA for supporting literature and case law if it exists

And gravitate towards the things that have durable consensus or more easily rationalizable consensus

But those kinds of requests during the first consultations make it pretty obvious if you want to work with them. If their whole business is just filing 1040-EZ’s for people with the standard deduction and collecting child tax credits, then they wont be prepared and you can rule them out.

What do you look for as their specialty? Is there a size of firm that you look for? Any key terms that you zero in on that would indicate that they do this type of work? Also how do you actually find a these ? Seems like a Google search won’t exactly bring up the right caliber folks.