Gear Up For The Tax Season 2018 With These Easy Tips

​Tax season is a tough and busy time for each and every business. The saying ‘Nothing is certain but death and taxes are’ is absolutely true because wherever you are, whatever you do, you can’t avoid the tax season and the 2018 tax season will be soon knocking at your door.

Although the IRS hasn’t given any official announcement for the dates of 2018 tax season but still it’s being expected to start from the mid-January. But even if there is no official announcement of the dates, it doesn’t mean that you should put the preparation of taxes in your “I will do it later” list of works.

The preparation of taxes goes on for the whole year through proper accounts operations, bookkeeping and other financial management. If you follow a strict financial management routine, then instead of being a headache, the tax season will pass on like a cakewalk for you.

So, in this blog post, we will be looking at some easy tips which will allow you to gear up for the tax season 2018.

Organize and gather your documents
Whether you are using the manual method, having a cloud-hosted software or using a third-party service, organizing your documents is one of the keys to a successful tax filing process. Always keep your documents in a safe place and keep your personal documents and business documents separately. You should also not forget to keep photocopies of all your tax documents and then store them in the virtual world by either taking pics or scanning and then storing them on your Google hard drive or Dropbox.  Some important tax documents are:-

• Bank statement
• Tax return of previous year
• Credit card statement
• Payroll information
• Insurance Premiums, etc.

Know the tax rules
Every year, the government changes the tax deduction levels according to their policies and it is better for you to get familiar with these new tax rules otherwise you can miss a tax deduction benefit even after being eligible for it. There are many ways through which you can save a lot on your taxes like did you know that ordinary advertising costs are fully deductible? You can miss many such chances of tax deductions if you are not aware of it.
 
Hire a professional
If you are not able to take out much time for tax preparation or if the taxes of your businesses are looking lengthy and difficult to handle, then you can consider hiring a professional like CPA. They help individuals and businesses to manage and file their taxes in in the most convenient way possible. These certified personal accountants will help you on each step of tax trouble and will allow you to save maximum taxes without any error or delay.

Be prepared for frauds
With the tax season coming closer, government, businesses, accountants and individuals will surely start preparing for it but there is one more group of people who will become proactive during this season and these are the scammers. These people steal the personal information of people and then use it for their own benefits, through calls, emails, SMS and other means of communication. They can also use your information for their own benefit. So be aware of such scammers and avoid such fake, emails, calls, etc.

Know the tax dates
Always keep an eye on the announcement made by IRS which will allow you to be updated with the latest tax dates. You can also sign in on the IRS website to get their latest press release, information and updates. Knowing the tax dates well in advance will help you to be prepared before the due date and plan your things accordingly.

Instead of making your tax season hectic, lengthy, frustrating and a cumbersome process, you can make it a pie by following the above-mentioned steps. So make plans and take actions in advance, so that the tax season 2018 proves to be an easy and tax saving time period for you.

Preeti

​​Preeti is a technical content writer who is currently associated with Cloudwalk. She spends most of the time of her day in the world of cloud computing and accounting software. Her vast experience in the field of cloud software and her love for IT has allowed her to become a major contributor on most of the knowledge based cloud platforms.