The Real Grown-up’s Guide to Filing Taxes
That’s right. An adult woman with a real job and several side gigs relied on her mother to do her taxes every year. One spring, I knew it was time for me to cut the cord and learn just how complicated this income tax stuff really was. I’ve been doing my own taxes ever since.
Figuring out which tax preparer is right for you can be complicated. Do you stay at home and file your taxes with the help of software or venture out to visit a real-life accountant? And what about all those storefront tax-preparation services?
Software
Examples: TurboTax, TaxAct, TaxSlayer, QuickBooks, H&R Block at Home You’re probably familiar with the idea of completing your taxes online or with software. The biggest perk of using a website or software is they don’t cost much. In fact, many allow you to file your federal tax return for free.
These tax-preparation websites and programs make taxes easy because they walk you through each step of the process, asking you questions to determine which credits you might qualify for or what deductions you should include. All you have to do is plug in some numbers, and voila! Your taxes are done.
Of course, you’ll have to pay more if you want bells and whistles, such as audit protection or extra guidance on rental properties. TurboTax, for example, ranges from $0 to $114.99 depending on the level of service you want. Those prices are for federal returns only — you’ll have to pay more to file your state returns.
Tax Services Manager
The Opportunity
critical mission to build a better working world by applying your knowledge, skills and experience in assisting clients in meeting their business objectives. You will learn, grow and contribute — building new relationships and discovering the satisfaction that comes with producing high-quality, valued work and advice
Your Key Responsibilities
You’re likely to spend your time on a diverse array of projects, responsibilities and tasks, supporting client engagements by participating in day-to-day interactions with team members, providing a quality work product and driving delivery of services to meet deadlines. You will serve as a trusted advisor and role model for our people across multiple teams, research tax law issues, provide advice and assistance to help clients understand risks and potential needs for additional tax advisory or compliance services
Responsibilities
Sign tax returns as preparer
Manage Analysts, Senior Analysts and Assistant Managers in performance of tax compliance services, and review and confirm accuracy in tax reporting
Communicate complex tax issues to colleagues, clients and non-tax professionals to enable evaluation and review of tax compliance requirements central to fulfilling fiduciary tax reporting obligations
Oversee multiple tax engagements of various sizes, including coordinating production and delivery of all tax deliverables, managing people and resources, implementing new processes and procedures, and managing engagement economics throughout the year
Serve as a trusted advisor and role model for our people across multiple teams
Identify service enhancements that will improve tax deliverables and engagement economics via improved accuracy of bridged data, educating engagement team members to provide for increased knowledge of clients’ trust accounting systems to provide for more insightful client communication and guidance, making sure the team is using the ONESOURCE™ Trust Tax software to its full functional capabilities, implementing leading practices, enhancing team members’ communication skills for continued growth and improved service delivery, helping team members to identify gaps that need analysis and review, and making sure team members understand the difference between routine and non-routine service deliverables that maybe out of scope in nature
Skills and Attributes for Success
Ability to identify, deploy and allocate resources as needed to fill gaps in service delivery in a high-volume, fast-paced working environment
Primary point of contact for day-to-day client relations for assigned engagements and demonstrate professional discretion by appropriately escalating complex tax and client relationship matters to senior management and subject-matter professionals, coordinating efforts, and managing expectations with regard to timing of response and resolution
Manage internal and external client relationships and professional network to support client retention and new business development
Manage communications with client tax liaisons, client trust administration teams and client trust officers to gather required information, to share information to support informed decision-making, and obtain instruction or authorization necessary for timely, accurate production of tax information statements, tax returns and related reporting
Build effective long-term relationships and manage workflow effectively with our clients, and understand their unique needs to provide tailored services
Manage engagement deliverables and team resources to achieve timely and accurate delivery of tax compliance services while effectively managing engagement economics
Tax
Get a clear picture of your tax position, even when changes to the law shift your landscape
Significant U.S. tax reform and global tax disruptors are creating market volatility that can have serious tax implications. helps businesses and private clients make sense of continually evolving issues related to federal, state and local, and international tax laws so they can optimize their tax position
Optimize your federal tax planning and better understand tax reform
Work with to enhance your tax opportunities and be more strategic in your tax planning. The changing regulatory environment is complex, but proper planning can help improve cash flow, reduce tax burden, and increase shareholder value.
Approach state and local tax enforcement with solid strategies and preparation
Compliance in an ever-changing state and local tax environment is challenging at best. Our SALT professionals can help with strategies to ease compliance and optimize tax advantages.
Understand the implications of international tax law on your global business strategy
When tackling the complexities of international tax compliance reporting and other nuanced issues, gain insight and reduce uncertainty with the help of our global network of international tax specialists.
Manage complex indirect tax exposure and liabilities
Managing indirect taxes requires a deep understanding of expanding tax bases and geographic tax obligations. Get sustainable, valuable results and manage the liabilities and risks of your organization’s tax footprint.
Accounting software for small business, that works anywhere you do.
Create and send personalised, professional invoices
Customise the look of your invoice by using our beautiful invoice templates. Add or edit a branding theme, include your payment terms, or simply upload your logo and you’re ready to go.
Take the work out of chasing payments
can send automated invoice reminders for you. All you have to decide is when and how often the reminders are sent out. You can also see whether your customer has seen an invoice and if it’s been paid.
Create online invoices quickly
Reduce repetitive manual data entry and speed up your invoicing by using preset inventory items, replicating previous invoices, and setting up repeating invoices.
Better security with online invoices
The online invoices you send are protected from unauthorised changes – unlike a PDF attached to an email. Within, invoice editing is limited and a record is kept of the main invoice actions. To fend off unauthorised access, we recommend enabling two-step authentication on your account and on your email account too.
Bulk send invoices
Send all of your invoices out at the same time. Or email multiple invoices, including overdue ones, to a single customer at once – the customer can then pay the full amount in one go.
The challenge of catching elusive taxpayers
tax collection is set to decline sharply this year because of the decline in national income and fall in employment due to COVID-19. Simultaneously, expenditures related to the pandemic are ballooning. Thus, the fiscal deficit in the budget is set to rise unless other expenditures are cut. However, there are committed expenditures which cannot be curtailed and the deficit in the budget is set to climb to a new high for 2020-21. So, there is no option but to try and collect more taxes.
stated that 15 million people pay income tax out of a population of more than 1.35 billion. This is the number for the financial year 2018-19. For 2019-20, the number of taxpayers may be similar given that the economy was slowing down and unemployment was at a record high. In 2020-21, the number would drop sharply due to the impact of COVID-19 and massive unemployment in the organised sector.
Drop in number of taxpayers
The number of tax filers has increased but the number of taxpayers has dropped. This is a result of the tax concession offered in the Budget — those filing a return
There are two categories of the well-off in the country: those who file a tax return and those who completely escape the tax net. If the former had declared more of their incomes, the tax to GDP ratio would have risen. If those who were outside the tax net had come into the tax net and started filing their returns, there would have been a rise both in the tax to GDP ratio and the number of taxpayers.
report says the top 10% of Indians earned 55% of the nation’s incomes. If these people could be brought under the income tax net and they paid their taxes honestly, at current tax rates, income tax to GDP ratio alone would have been about 18%. Add to that the collection from other direct taxes, like corporate tax, and the figure would be more than 20%. This figure of 55% does not take into account the black income generation in the country. Clearly a lot of taxes are not paid out of white incomes and none from the black incomes