That sucks. I volunteered this year to do taxes for people and on my spare time, I did my taxes. I'll receive a $643 check deposted to my account sometime next week. $1500 is a lot of money that you owe to the Government. Did you not have any Federal witholdings for the whole year???

To actually answer your question. A professional tax preparer is only worth it if you have a shit load of stuff. For ex: Daily stock trader, farm income, a shit load of self business expenses, and much more. The IRS promotes people to actually try and file their own taxes. The 1040's have blocks and for each papers that you use, they have step by step examples to walk you through it. It just takes time.

Most cases, people just don't know what to do with their taxes and they don't know how to send it to the IRS and such, which is why they go to places. An average single 18-25 year old's taxes should be piece of cakes.