When you go to a tax service you enter into a contact with them to prepare your taxes. You are hiring them (and whatever tools they have) to prepare your taxes for you to your satisfaction. If they do NOT prepare your taxes to your satisfaction you do not have to pay.

How they prepare your taxes is irrelevant, you are paying for the service.

They have to ask you questions to retrieve the answers from you. If they read from a computer or the tax forms it does not matter. The outcome, your taxes prepared, is what you contracted for.

To go the tax service and make note of what they are asking you so you can use those deductions yourself, and not paying them, is stealing.

So with you’re logic. If it took you two hours to resolve a UNIX problem for someone, then told them the problem, they should be able to say they were unsatisfied with the tools you used to trouble shoot the problem, not pay you, take your answer and fix it themselves.

If you don’t like the $80 fee don’t go. Don’t steal their time and knowledge. They have to eat too.