My mother-in-law was very happy today. Four popped collars happy. So happy, in fact, she gave me not one, but two high-fives.
Her taxes were finished. Practically signed, sealed, and delivered. Just waiting on one form from an investment firm that was overdue, but otherwise, done and done!
She didn't have a simple return, either. Let's just say that her tax situation this year was … complicated. State taxes for three different states was just the start.
Yet the tax return, crazy as it was, only took a meeting of a couple of hours with a tax preparer. How did she do it?
In essence, she had been preparing her taxes from January 1st of last year until now. Her payoff was an easy meeting with the tax preparer.
Through experience, she had learned the kinds of records she needed to keep for tax purposes. She knew the big sources of deductions that pertained to her and my father-in-law's work, and organized them accordingly. The records were already in one place, categorized and ready to go for the meeting with her tax preparer.
She had a fairly painless tax preparation season. I won't have such a painless one. It will take more than two hours, for sure, because I still have to assemble a lot of records to get ours done. My records aren't well-organized. This year is off to a better start, but that's this year, not last year. 🙂
H&R Block At Home has made it easy for me the past three years to get our taxes done, but that assumes that I have my ducks in a row. No program — no tax preparer, really — can make up for disorganization.
Pay now, or pay later. The choice is yours how easily you get your taxes done!
Preparation is key! I start a tax folder at the beginning of every year and as important tax related documents come during the year, I put them in that folder. This is especially true for charitable contributions of goods, which we do several times a year. If I didnt have the those records handy I’d usually end up paying something in taxes when filing. It usually never takes me more than a few hours to get my taxes done, and mine are somewhat complicated (although I only file for one state).
I also use the H&R Block program and have been very happy with it. However, I still can’t get my taxes done in 2 hours! That is lightning fast!!
If you really want your taxes done in under 2 hours, just send them to me! Well, maybe. It all depends on how complicated and disorganized it all is.
Organization is the key to anything, really. I do my own personal return and 2 business returns in a matter of minutes just by being a bit anal about organization. But, I also see the opposite, where people come in with boxes or bags of unsorted documents then turning white after seeing the bill. Someone had to do all of the work to get everything situated, and if wasn’t going to be the client, then they are going to pay for all the time that went into getting the final product completed.
So, yes, pay now or pay later, but you WILL pay one way or another!