Here we are less than a month from the due date of tax returns. Most of you are scrambling to get your information together for your accountant. You hope the tax bite is not too big this year – that you won't have a big tax payment due on April 15th. You wonder, “Is there anything that can be done on my tax return to lower my taxes?” After all, it's a little late to “plan.”
I have great news for you. There are literally hundreds of things you can do in preparing your tax return that will both reduce your taxes AND reduce your change of being audited by the IRS. The other day, we were doing our weekly training of our tax professionals. I asked them to get together and list everything we do at ProVision for clients DURING the tax return preparation process that either reduced taxes or reduced audit risk.
Even I was amazed by the resulting list. We came up with over 60 categories of ways we help our clients reduce taxes/audit risk during the tax return preparation process. Specific items of savings number in the hundreds. And all of these savings are PERMANENT!
So the question you should be asking yourself right now is whether your tax return preparer knows enough of the law and how to apply it that they can produce the best result for you. If you are like most people, you are leaving THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS on the table. Your tax preparer may not charge a lot, but WHAT ARE THEY COSTING YOU???
If you take the tax savings from good tax advice and reinvest it, you can double the amount of wealth you might otherwise accumulate.
So don't be thinking that you are saving money by using an inexpensive tax preparation service. Over 95% of the tax returns I see prepared by other preparers overstate the client's tax. It's not too late to make a change. So do something now. At least have another advisor look at your taxes from last year.
Warmest regards,
Tom