Tax time has come and if you have not already done so, now would be a very good time to get organized for taxes.
You can reduce a lot of stress in your life by doing this in a timely manner. If you procrastinate, you will be a wreck searching for everything you need. Schedule in some time very soon and follow these steps for a very successful tax season.
Save time and hassle by using our 1099 processing tax service.
How to Get Tax Organized
Here’s how you can get your taxes organized:
Put Everything Together
Remember in Preschool when you were taught to keep your stuff organized and in order. This is the truth. It will make your life that much easier to have everything you need in one exact place. This way you can find everything you are looking for to complete your taxes, regardless of who is doing them. Get all the information about your commission and bonus checks also.
If you have a CPA or use a company to file your taxes, they will need all of this information as well. If you are someone who does their own taxes, then you are saving yourself an enormous amount of time. Get a manilla envelope or a file folder and put it somewhere handy. Each time you receive something in the mail having to do with your taxes or anything you need to stay organized, add it to the file. This is helpful for receipts and financial backup as well. Dump it all in the folder. Keeping it all in one place is key. We do that for our 1099 services mailing services.
Think About The Year
Anything new? Did you buy a home? Take any courses for your career? Mileage or other job expenses that were not reimbursed? These are all things to think about. If you have some of these expenses they may be eligible for tax deductions. Just make sure you have a financial backup such as receipts, bank/credit card statements or logs as proof.
Donate
Have you made any donations in the tax year? If not, now is a great time to do a little yearly clean out. Gather anything you are not using anymore such as clothes, kitchen appliances, and household items to donate. Donations are write-offs too.
It’s A…
Did you have a baby last year? If so, be sure the baby has a social security number. If not, apply for one asap. Babies are another deduction in addition to many wonderful things that sweet little babies are! Along with their beauty, they are dependent and there is an earned income tax credit and child tax credit.
See, that’s not so bad. It is just like picking up your toys when you are little. It seems like it is going to be a lot worse than it has to be. But in the end, it’s actually quite easy to get organized for taxes. Good Luck!!
The time is upon us and the clock is ticking away. The deadline to file your taxes is April 18th this year. So who is ready to file those taxes? Do you even know where your 1099’s and W-2’s are? Well, I am sure you aren’t alone, many people wait until the last possible minute to file their taxes. Here on our blog, we’ve written incessantly about organizing taxes throughout the year. Wait, did that sound as though I was chastising you all? No, not at all, because I will let you in on an embarrassing and very dark secret. Yours truly still has some tax filing to do!
More important, have you prepared to file your taxes? Preparation is the ultimate key to execution, particularly when it comes to taxes. So have you kept up with your 1099 tax forms? By “kept up,” I mean, if you had to file taxes right now, how long would it take you to figure out where they are? If your answer is more than 5 minutes, you probably haven’t organized nearly as well as you think you have. Get everything in order and in one spot, so you don’t have to waste a ton of time and energy when you finally sit down to do your taxes.
Have you saved your receipts? Now, are they organized in a way that is seamless for you to go through them? The key here is, in many cases, just scanning the taxable receipts into something such as Dropbox or Google Drive. This way you can easily access them and you don’t have a pile of receipts (that are losing their ink anyway) taking up tons of space. Plus cloud storage is more reliable than hard copies anyway.
Have you scheduled anything with your accountant yet? C’mon friends, at least do that part!! Accountants are in their busiest time of year, you can’t just drop by. Do yourself a favor and schedule a time to meet and get your taxes done. Having an actual appointment is more likely to get you to also speed up things on your end!
Tax Form Mailings
By now, you have started receiving your tax forms in the mail. Earlier in the week, we discussed W-2s being one of those forms. If you are like me, you are using this weekend to get organized and get through that dreaded pile of unopened mail. This is a good time make sure that you set aside any of the tax forms you have received thus far. There are some others that you should be on the look-out for as well. Here is your heads up to what other tax goodies you might see in the mail.
1099-MISC
You will receive one or more of these if you have done any moonlighting or freelance work as an independent contractor.
1099-INT
This form will be in your mailbox if you have received interest on savings and investments. It will come from either banks or financial institutions that you have had dealings with.
1099-DIV
The arrival of this form is if you had any dividends or other distributions from investments. This would also be coming from banks and/or financial institutions.
Health Insurance Form 1095 A, B and C
1095-B and 1095-C is not needed to file your taxes, it is more for you to file away in a safe place for your own records (Health Insurance & Tax records). Now, the 1095-A will arrive if you have health insurance through the Health Insurance Marketplace. You can file this just as you file a W-2. Easy enough!
1098-E
Far too many of us have one of these coming our way if we have any student loans left! This my friends is for the interest on the student loans. Don’t fret, this one is tax-deductible!!
1098
This form reports mortgage interest of $600 or more during the specific tax year. So if you have a mortgage and have interest amounts of more than $600, you will receive one of these.
Remember to keep yourself organized by putting all of your forms and financial back-up (for deductions and tax write-offs) in one place. You are already ahead of the game if you are doing this. Even if someone else is doing your taxes, you will need all of your forms and back-up for them to crunch numbers and file your taxes.
Hopefully, none of this tax information has been too boring 🙂
The time is coming, what better time to start those dreaded taxes than now? So let’s get going with this. I am going to do the same asap!
We offer comprehensive 1099 processing services for all your tax form needs.
Resources:
Federal Tax Forms
Income Tax Calculator
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