As “The Taxening” approaches, you may find yourself at wit’s end trying to locate all of your documents — but odds are that you can get started anyway.
One of the things that we’ve learned over the years is that sending something is better than sending nothing. If you’re waiting for other, required documents, send your CPA everything you have so far, such as:
- Medical receipts
- Capital improvement paperwork
- Donation paperwork
- Insurance premiums
- Tax payments and refunds.
If you expect your missing paperwork will cause you to miss this year’s April 18th deadline, the IRS was thinking of you last week when it published this helpful reminder on its website:
“Taxpayers who aren’t able to file by the April 18, 2023, deadline can request an extension before that deadline, but they should know that an extension to file is not an extension to pay taxes.”
Of course the best way to avoid tax stress is prevention. Many of my clients have worked on improving their filing systems after a particularly grueling tax season. The key to making document storage easy is to develop a system, or procedure, that can be blended into your daily life. Resist the temptation to process documents in large batches. When our office went digital, we learned how easy it was to scan all the receipts. From there it was simple to keep an identical set of files; one on paper, and one on a secure server.
As always, I recommend doing your taxes with a Certified Public Accountant who has a real office and real reviews online. I’m not shy to mention that professionals with blogs are better than professionals with no blogs.
JHA lives and breathes organization, and we can help you build your filing system — and keep it up and running. Contact us to learn more.
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