In a couple of weeks, fresh snow falling will not fill us with wonder anymore. Not that I’ve thought about it.
It’s also the time when you get to show off your organizational chops. There will be tax forms and all their supporting documents to file and store — for seven years. To put a punctuation on your efforts, I’ve come up with a short checklist:
- Now is a good time to make sure you have confirmation letters from any charitable contributions.
- Ensure that you’ve paid all of your taxes, on time, and you’ve retained all the documentation for that.
- If you haven’t sat down with your accountant yet, it’s not too late. Sit down with them and see if there’s anything you should be doing at the end of the year.
- Just keep receipts. For now. At the end of the year, you can start going through your backlog of receipts that you thought you needed to save — like utility bills or lunch receipts. You can throw those out. You don’t need those unless they’re on your tax return for business.
- Sometimes I just browse Amazon for exciting organizational products. They rarely change my life in the way I was hoping.
As always, I urge you to work with an actual Certified Public Accountant. “Tax preparers,” like the people who work in the ubiquitous big-box tax mills, simply don’t have the knowledge (and ability to see the future) that a CPA does. What’s more, I’ve heard of a lot of unprofessional behavior from tax preparers, whose franchise locations are like little fiefdoms.
At JHA, we have a rolodex full of great CPAs all over the country. We can help you figure out what you need but don’t have — and what you have but don’t need. For more information, contact us.
Recent Comments