Are you a new taxpayer here in the US? Thinking about how you are going to prepare the tax return papers? You must be heard about professional tax preparers who are specifically specialized to prepare your tax returns. If you are thinking this is a waste of your hard-earned money, don’t worry, about 60% of your fellow Americans are already paying a tax professional individual or an agency to get their tax returns ready too. Now that’s an easy info to get anywhere. But do you know what are the responsibilities they will have to take for you? Do you know what you can really expect from a tax professional?
To be able to take the most optimal service and have the maximum possible deduction, you must know what you are paying for. I will talk about the things the tax professional you are hiring should be capable of doing in this article.
What is a tax preparer?
Before we jump into the key responsibilities of a tax preparer, let’s talk about what is a tax preparer in the first place!
A tax preparer is an agency or a person who is professional at calculating, filing and signing the income tax returns on behalf of you or your business. The profession requires a high level of knowledge about federal income tax laws, all the procedures and how to submit the returns for the max amount of deduction effectively. Besides several academic certifications, a tax preparer also should have a Tax Preparer Identification Number (PTIN) authorized by the IRS (Internal Revenue Service). They also need to have registration and certification from the IRS.
If you are looking for a Tax pro in Tucson, there are tons of them here. You can go online, search On IRS’s database for an experienced Tax professional with all your criteria and they will provide you the best suggestions available in the market.
What are the responsibilities?
Taking interview of clients
You want to pay the taxes, so you make a file and go submit the return file! Submitting a tax return doesn’t work that easy way. You must go through a long process of processing numerous things that should be taken into account before preparing the file. To make things clear and easier to do the job, A professional tax preparer will be taking an interview with you and ask you several questions about all your expenses, liabilities and your financial states to be clear about what he is dealing with.
Collecting your financial info
To start filing your tax return, a tax pro will try to gather each and every information related to your tax return. The information will include your current financial state, all your expenses throughout the year. In order to include your income source, the preparer will ask for your income statements from the current job you have or the business that makes your living. The preparer needs all the information because they will need to fill up several forms such as the W-2 form. So be sure to provide all the info they may want from you.
Completing the forms
Most of the tax preparing professionals who use tax specific software to determine what forms are needed to be filled up to complete the return file. But there are plenty of professionals who don’t use any software to tell them what to fill up and what not to. Although the software-based work eliminated a lot of effort to come in the line, the once who goes old school also does a great job as my knowledge goes.
Tax preparers who don’t use any software, The IRS provides them fillable forms, They will do all the calculation jobs automatically. While the tax preparers search for all the possible ways to reduce the tax amount of his/their client, they search for tax-saving deductions and credits. They will do this during thy fill up the forms. If there is an unusual situation that comes into play, the preparer goes to the IRS help and Publication 17 to find extra assistance.
Filling up the forms and submit the return
The main job a tax preparer does for you is to file up the forms on your income tax and submit them to the IRS. Most of the file the tax returns electronically through a software. This has several benefits to you such as inaccurate calculations and faster process with reliablity. If you choose to fise the return electronically, you must include the last year’s gross income and PIN number. You can connect the IRS for them if you don’t have them ready with you.
Bottom line
If you are looking for a professional tax preparer, there are tons of other criteria too, besides the mentioned once you should have a look at. If your tax preparer doesn’t have a good heart or professional attitude inside, you are not going to be satisfied with your finance at the end of the day. I just talked about the technical responsibilities you should know about any tax pro. The rest is up to you!