If a Certified Public Accountant gave you advice to save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, would you take it? What if you were only a few years away from retirement and your advisor told you about a way to ensure you would have enough money to retire on…regardless of what happens in the market—would you do it? Many people have turned to doing their own tax planning (and insurance and investment planning for that matter) in order to save some money. For the same reason you don’t take your medical problems to WebMD, or ask a blogger how to perform a skin mole removal with a sterilized Exacto knife, you should seek the best advice you can afford.
This month, I want you to evaluate your tax preparation system. Do you use a CPA? A tax-preparer? An enrolled agent? Do you do it yourself? Whatever you do, please know that tax-planning doesn’t start in March and end on April 15th. You should be meeting with a professional to help you plan for your anticipated taxes. Waiting till after October 15th, or December 31st to start you planning can mean the difference in $1,000’s on you bottom line! That is, $1,000’s of dollars that could have been kept in your pocket (or at least postponed on paying for the next 20-30 years). Running a Small Businesses is even more complicated (even if you don’t have any employees).
If you would like help in finding someone who can help you strategize your tax planning, let me know. Most of the time, CPAs are worth more than they cost! Turbo-tax may be easy, but I have yet to have it answer a single question I’ve asked it! If your CPA/accountant never answered a single question, I’m sure they would charge far less too. Think about it.