Prepping for Tax Season

Prepping your taxes is too important to leave to the last minute and hastily throw together. Ideally, you should start prepping for tax season the year before, right after you file your taxes for the previous year. Throughout the year, you should be:

• Compiling receipts.
• Tracking mileage when you travel offsite for work.
• Saving money from each paycheck in a separate savings account if you think you’re going to owe money when your return is filed. 
• Saving one-third of each paycheck for any freelance work you do in a separate account to cover the taxes you will owe on that income.

If you haven’t been prepping throughout the last twelve months, don’t despair. Here are four quick steps you can take today to get ready:

1. Round up your tax documents. By now you should have received your W2s, W9s, bank statements, and other documents of that nature. Many of these are delivered electronically, so if you haven’t looked them over, go to your email or online statements and do so now.

2. Gather your receipts if you’re itemizing deductions. Hopefully you’ve kept your receipts in one drawer or folder. If not, label a folder 2018 so you can start collecting receipts for next year.

3. Consider consulting a tax expert. If you’re taxes are complicated—filing in multiple states, itemizing deductions, filing as the sole proprietor of your own business, etc.—a tax expert is the safest bet. Not only will the time you save be worth the cost of the consultation, but your tax expert may find savings for you in places you wouldn’t know to look. All tax experts are extremely busy at this time of year, so make your appointment today.

4. If you’re filing online, start ASAP. Instead of waiting until the eleventh hour to dig into the tax software, start now. Do as much as you can with what you have, save your changes, and log out. Then you can hunt around for whatever forms or information you’re missing, log back in when you have it, and pick up where you left off.

The content of this article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide any professional tax preparation advice. AAA does not guarantee any particular outcome.
If you’re filing online, visit AAA.com/TaxAct25 today.