Should You Work With A Qualified Tax Professional? | Free Finance ...

Let?s focus on a concern that is becoming common during this era of tight money. Practically many people have a small business on the side these days. Keeping books is currently a universal issue.

Many tax professionals comment that their bookkeeping clients are opting to do their own bookkeeping, using tools like QuickBooks. When it comes time for tax returns, the clients import the data into TurboTax and attempt to complete their tax returns. This article has been shared by TWK. You can find TWK by searching CPA firms Santa Barbara.

When things don?t calculate right, or the tax returns don?t add up, they come back to their tax pro demanding help but don?t like to pay for all the additional time to fix their books. It generally takes the pro longer to fix the books than it would have taken to do the work correctly from the beginning.

What?s wrong with your books? Folks not trained in accounting or bookkeeping often make major mistakes. Remember, it took the tax pros several years to get those degrees in accounting, or to take all those in-depth bookkeeping classes.

What types of errors do tax pros find? People include loans to their businesses as income; draw from the business as wages; log full car-loan payments as auto expenses. They don?t do an inventory at year-end, leaving their entire inventory on the books as purchases. Capital improvements or fixtures, or assets that can be depreciated, are expensed. Meals and entertainment are lumped with travel. Personal expenses stay on business books without adjusting them out before doing the tax returns. These are just a few of the minor adjustments a tax professional needs to make after reviewing a layperson?s efforts.

Sure, some people should definitely go the easy way and prepare personal tax returns working with online services. But others should work with a qualified tax professional. Who needs a safety net? Those that have businesses, rental properties, complicated stock transactions (for which you need a professional to assist you with basis questions), dependent issues, sales of properties, employee stock options, cancellation of debt issues (unless the financing was the original mortgage for the home), bankruptcy, major gifts, prizes, or anything that confuses you.

Whether you are an individual or business searching accounting firms Santa Barbara. TWK believes they have the years of valuable experience required to satisfy your accounting needs in Santa Barbara or Thousand Oaks.

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