How to Organize the Paperwork for filing a Tax Return
Male: How should I organize my paperwork for filing my tax return?
Art: Where most folks who sit down to prepare their own return get into difficulty is we as, or I’ll just give you a general statement as somebody who has been in this profession over 40 years. In my own humble opinion, I think most American tax payers pay more taxes than they have to for the very simple reason is that we are the world’s worst record keepers. We refuse to write anything down, when you save receipts, they get dump in to the typical shoe box or paper bag and now you’re gonna prepare a return and out comes everything else. It gets dump on the table, and you’ll gonna try to get through this one piece of paper are at a time. That’s why this question is here about organization. Sort your papers out. What is income? What are deductions? If they are in the deduction category, which deduction are they? Remember there are basically five or six major categories that we’ll get to, medical expenses, charitable contributions, interest expense, taxes, and miscellaneous. So if you organize your papers in that fashion, then if you have, or if you’re on a computer and there’s a tax program in front of you, it’s gonna ask you the very questions that I just said. What do, do you have medical expenses? You answer yes, then goes to the next screen, did you go to the doctor? Dentist? Optometrist? And you pick your receipt then you enter the information. So if you organize it by category, category of income and category of deductions, you’re gonna find preparations is gonna go a lot smoother.