Your Tax Organizer helps you and us to gather your tax records. The Tax Organizer shows all of the tax related items that were present in your prior year tax return. We use it as a tool to make sure we account for all known sources of income and deductions. We strongly encourage these steps when you collect and provide your tax information to us:
- Open the Tax Organizer. The cover letter lists areas that need your attention. The second document is our engagement letter. Please read it to make sure that all relevant questions will be addressed. Pay particular attention to the page titled “1040 Organizer Questions”. These are questions we need you to answer annually. Read these questions carefully, as they are multi-part questions. All “Yes” answers require additional information from you. Please include it when returning the Tax Organizer and your tax documents to us.
- Provide all government tax forms, such as a W-2s, 1099s, and K-1s. The IRS often requires us to report additional information on these forms. Writing the amount you believe relevant in the Tax Organizer is not sufficient. If you have a government tax form, please don’t simply write these amounts in the Tax Organizer.
- Include all pages of the government tax forms, such as consolidated Forms 1099 and Schedules K-1. When pages are missing, important information and supporting schedules may also be missing.
- Do not put stickers, post-its or notes on the government tax forms you give us. This requires additional work to remove them before your documents are scanned.
- Turn to the page titled “Federal Tax Payments”. Provide all the individual amounts and dates of estimated tax payments you made for the current tax year including the 4th quarter payment due by January 15th of the following year, if applicable. If you have copies of your checks, send those as well. If your return is on extension, include confirmation of all payments made for the extension(s) and for estimated taxes paid for the current year.
