Be Ready For Your Tax Preparer

In doing taxes for the last few years, I have had plenty of people come in not prepared to file their taxes. There have been plenty of times where I opened the the W-2's or other important tax information for people. They have no idea how much they made for the year, how much was withheld, or even if the Social Security and Medicare taxes where withheld at the correct rate. Taxes and filing an accurate tax return are very important, and I find it hard to believe that a lot of people do not even open their tax information to find out if all of the information is correct. The interview will go a lot smoother and faster if you are prepared and you have all of your records ready, plus your return will be accurate. Plus, it is really not fair to the other clients if a tax preparer has to spend 10 minutes opening stuff up that the taxpayer should have already done. That is 10 more minutes other customers have to wait, and everyone hates to wait, correct?

Now, I don't know how it is in other tax offices, but where I work, we are really going to be using due diligence. This means do not try to use a child that is not yours as a dependent, do not give us false information for your tax return, trying to take deductions you are not entitled to, things along these lines. We will ask questions. The IRS is really cracking down on fraudulent returns, and they have increased the penalties against tax preparers who file returns such as these. I also had to take a required course on fraud and ethics. Trust me, I'm not about to file a fraudulent tax return, I don't want or need the IRS after me. I am a professional tax preparer and I take my job seriously, as I'm sure the vast majority of tax preparers do.

In other news, I really haven't been able to do many updates, as I have been at the office doing my training, taking and passing the tests I need to, working on practice tax problems, and just getting ready for the start of the tax season.

Tim

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