Taxes 2018: 4 Ways to Make the Process Seamless and Simple

As the deadline to file your taxes draws closer and closer, you might find yourself panicking, wondering how you’ll ever complete your taxes on time. Taxes can be quite challenging as you go back over an entire year of financial transactions, many of which may have happened several months ago. 

Fortunately, with the right planning and advice, you can be well on your way to having your taxes filed quickly and easily.

Prepare in Advance

The best way to make your tax preparation easy is to prepare everything you’ll need in advance. It might be tedious if you haven’t had a chance to keep track of tax receipts throughout the year but it’s much better than missing something that ends up shorting you on your refund or getting you audited. 

Go through all of your bank statements, earnings reports, online transactions, and loose receipts to look for anything which might be applicable to your tax return. Even if you’re not sure, go ahead and set the receipt aside so you’ll know right where it is if you do need it. 



Then, as you begin to prepare your return, you can work through the receipts on the fly to have the correct figures for each form.

Ask Questions

If there’s anything on your return that you’re not absolutely sure about, be sure to ask someone who knows. Whether you do an online search or consult the knowledge database associated with a tax preparation program, it’s likely the answer to your question is already out there. 

If not, find a way to ask your question and be sure it’s answered to your satisfaction before you complete the form the question was in regards to. Again, it’s better to take the extra time to have your question answered than to guess and be wrong.

A Hired Hand

By far, the best way to ensure your taxes are done quickly, easily, and correctly is to hire a CPA to do your taxes for you. CPAs understand all the laws concerning your tax return, so you can rest assured that you’re getting your maximum refund without doing anything that could cause you trouble down the road. 

Many a professional CPA offer guarantees so that if you do run into trouble, you’ll have someone to assist you, rather than trying to fight it alone.

All at Once

Whether you do your taxes yourself or hire someone else to do it, be sure you work to get your return entirely completed in one sitting if at all possible. If you start to do it over a long period of time, you may forget progress you have already made, potentially leading to costly mistakes. 

Not only that, but if you’re like most people, taxes aren’t the most fun way to be spending your time, anyway, so spending as little time on it as possible will lessen the misery you have to endure.

For all the info collecting and researching you have to do to get your taxes completed correctly, remember that there is a finish line to the process. 

There will be a day when you’re finally able to submit your return and maybe even get a little money back in the process. If you keep this in mind during the tax return process, you’ll be much less likely to be overwhelmed by it so it won’t cause more stress than it needs to.