Things to do before the beginning of the tax season

Tax season might be a blessing in disguise for most of the accounting and tax professionals for small businesses and common people, tax season is nothing less than a hassle. There will be only a handful of non-accounting professionals out there who love tax season as in most cases, tax season brings along a lot of calculation, document gathering, deductions, and boring processes. But it doesn’t matter how badly you hate the tax season, there is no way you can avoid the tax season since it is compulsory in each and every case. 

Instead of considering tax season as a hassle and instead of trying to ignore it until the deadline starts knocking on your door, you should start looking for some of the tips that you can use in order to make the tax season easy. There are many people who use the right methods and they are able to pass the tax season like a breeze. 

To make things easier for you, we have included a list of things that you should do before the beginning of the tax season to make this period less stressful in your life. 

Choose a tax preparer 

One of the best things that you can do in order to make the tax season easy in your life is to hire a tax preparer. You might think of this as an unnecessary expense but you should know that paying the nominal fee to the tax preparer can save you from a lot of hassle. 

If you don’t know any tax preparer then it is always a good decision to ask your friend and family members as there are maximum chances that they might be using the services of a tax preparer for a very long time. But before making the final decision on a tax preparer, you will have to make sure that the person has a preparer tax identification number (PTIN). This shows that the person is authorized for filing federal tax returns. 

In addition to this, it also becomes necessary to enquire about the fee and you should know that the fee charged by the tax preparer depends on the complexity of the return and therefore, you should never expect the same price from every tax preparer. 

Gather the important documents 

Another important thing that you will need to do is to make sure that you gather all the important documents required for filing taxes with ease and you will need to do it before the beginning of the tax season. But there is no standard document requires that you need to fulfill as the type of document you need depends on your profession, the type of company you are running, and the type of financial situation you have. 

In most cases, you will need to have the following documents;

• Form W-2
• Different types of 1099 forms 
• Form 1098, and 
• Form W-2G

If you are not sure about which type of document you might need during tax filing then you can always get in touch with an expert and ask them about the type of documents you might need for filing tax with ease. 

Round up all your receipts 

In addition to gathering all the documents, you will also have to make sure that you have gathered all the receipts and this is one of the most important parts of filing taxes. Without receipts, you are going to make the tax season quite hectic and you will have to run from here and there when the deadline will be knocking on your door. 

The type of receipt you need to provide depends on whether you itemize your deductions or if you are claiming the standard deductions. You will have to choose whichever offers the bigger write-off and if you are not sure about it then you can always get in touch with a tax expert and get the best advice. 

List all your personal information 

Last but not least; you will have to list all your personal information if you are looking forward to filing your taxes without any hassle. You might be aware of your own Social Security number but do you know the SSN of all the dependents you claim? You must make a note of all SSN of the dependents you are claiming in addition to all the other information that the tax expert might need to file the taxes. 

If you are going to file taxes then there are many things that you can do in order to reduce the stress and the chaos during the tax season. Starting with a tax preparer, there are many other things that you can do without going extravagant with your budget like choosing QuickBooks hosting solution to make your life easy.