Hate Doing Your Taxes? Four Effective Ways to Make Doing Your Taxes Easier
The average citizen doesn’t enjoy tax season. It can be very overwhelming and exhausting, especially if you don’t have your finances in order. If you are married with children and have your money in a lot of various investments, then doing your taxes can be quite complicated. You want to be able to do your taxes right the first time because no one wants to do them more than once. Avoiding getting in trouble with the law is also a nice incentive to doing your taxes once, on time, and most of all filing them correctly. For some people, these insecurities in doing their taxes tend to provide them with stress and anxiety. Luckily, there are some ways to make calculating and paying taxes more simple. Consider these tips:
1. Save Your Receipts
Many business expenses are at least partially deductible. You don’t have to know all the details of tax law to prepare for taking these deductions. Just save your receipts. To make this easier, get an expanding folder in which to store receipts. Label each section of the folder for the type of expenses you have. You might have a tab for food and entertainment, for gifts and incentives, for office supplies, and for travel. Every time you get home after making a business purchase, simply slide the receipt into your expanding folder. Keeping you receipts will help you keep better track of your fiances throughout the year and thus making it easier to do your taxes. It is also helps you keep tabs on your bank to make sure they are recording your transactions correctly on your monthly banks statement. It also might help you to avoid any potential problems like identity theft.
2. Keep Track of Mileage
If you use your vehicle for business, keep track of your mileage. Keep a pencil and a small spiral notebook in your car. Keep in in a secure place like the glove compartment. On January 1, write down the beginning mileage. Each time you go somewhere on business, write down the total mileage of that journey in your notebook. If you buy gas, write down how much gas you bought and how much you spent. On December 31, record the ending mileage.
3. Keep Track of Donations
Whether or not you are self-employed, you may be able to take significant deductions at tax time by giving donations. If you give money regularly to a church, school or charity organization, you will probably receive documentation concerning these donations after the end of the year. If you give by donating products, even secondhand clothing, be sure you get a receipt from the charity at the time of your donation.
4. Enlist the Help of a Tax Professional
If you are struggling doing your taxes, tax preparation companies can help. Even if your taxes are fairly simple, you shouldn’t try to do your taxes using the paper forms. Unless your tax situation is particularly straightforward and you don’t actually have any of the receipts and records listed above, you probably shouldn’t try to do your own taxes even using software. Instead, take the records you’ve collected throughout the year to a tax professional and let him or her do the hard work. As long as you’ve taken the time to collect the necessary information and kept it organized, the tax professional will be able to quickly prepare your tax returns.
Taxes can be intimidating. Tax codes change yearly, and different tax laws govern each state. However, as long as you keep all the necessary documentation, a tax professional can help you complete the process painlessly.
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Category: Taxes
