After twenty plus years of preparing taxes I’d like to share a few of my thoughts with you regarding tax season and taxes.

Nobody wants to pay taxes.

The wealthy people think they pay too much.

The middle income people think they pay too much.

The low income people think they pay too much.

Lots of people don’t have any idea that ordinary income and capital gains income are taxed differently. In fact, lots of people don’t know what capital gains tax is about.

The people who bring their work in last often think you should do their work immediately even though you still have returns to do for the people who brought their work in early in March.

Lots of people think that tax preparers work FOR the IRS.

Any tax rebate given by the government is accompanied with confusion and extra work, for example the Telephone Excise Tax Rebate of 2007 and the Economic Stimulus Rebate of 2008.

Brokers notoriously send out incorrect 1099 data and then send out corrected copies after people already have had their returns prepared.

Your tax liability is the amount of tax you owe before federal tax withholding, estimated tax payments and credits are applied.

Asking a tax preparer how a calculation is done in the middle of tax season is a NO NO. It is not your Tax Preparer’s job to explain complicated tax law to you or to show you a calculation step by step that you probably won’t follow anyway. It is their job to prepare your tax returns as accurately as possible by applying their knowledge of tax law to gain the best results possible for your particular situation.

People who don’t want an extension are often the same people who do not provide the necessary information to prepare their returns without an extension.

The tax rates are always too high.

The balance dues are always too large.

The refunds are always too small.

Several people will tell you why a flat tax would be better and how it would put you out of a job if one was instituted.

People who bring their newsletters to their tax preparers marked FYI seriously think that the preparers have time to read them in their entirety.

Anything that can go wrong with the computer network will go wrong during tax season.

E-filing will be bogged down on the last day of filing or the internet will be uncooperative.

People that call to ask how their return looks to try to get you to complete it faster don’t realize that if everyone calls to ask that question by the end of tax season a preparer probably has lost of full day of what would have been preparation time.

Maybe a stagered tax return deadline would make it easier for everyone; but no one seems to be able to agree on how to make that happen.

Nobody likes paying taxes and nobody likes Tax Season including Tax Preparers! So its a good thing that another one is over :)



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