Well, it’s that time of year.  While we do look forward to the twinkly lights and holiday hustle-and-bustle, it is this time of year where we begin ramping operations up in anticipation of the 2015 filing season with tax planning and year-end preparation. As with most CPA firms, our busiest months are February through April.  We’d like to take a few moments now to help make this filing season your easiest and most hassle-free filing ever with the following tips:

• Please answer all of the questions in the organizer questionnaire. This is crucial for the 2014 tax year due to the Affordable Care Act enactments, and we will not be able to complete your tax return until the questions that pertain to the ACA and healthcare coverage are answered.
• If you know that you will need to be placed on extension, send the tax documents/reports to our office at least one week in advance of the filing deadline so our firm can evaluate whether a payment should be made with your extension.
• One of the easiest ways to run up a large tax preparation bill is to leave it to your accountant to sort through your documents.  While we are happy to be the ones to sort through all of your year-end documents as they come in piece by piece over the months, this is not the most budget-friendly way to go about preparing your tax return.  Instead, we strongly encourage our clients to wait until they have received most (if not all) of their tax documents before turning them over to us.
• If you’re going to take advantage of the Arizona tax credits, be sure that you request receipts for every donation you’ve made, and ensure that the receipts specifically identify that the contribution is eligible for the tax credit. We advise doing this before the middle of January as most charitable organizations are suddenly slammed with receipt requests for the prior fiscal year beginning in February through tax season (for obvious reasons).

  

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