Insights
What to Bring to Your Tax Appointment
Most of the delay in preparing a return is not the preparing. It is waiting for a document that did not come to the first meeting. Here is what to gather beforehand.
Bring what you have. A missing form is not a reason to postpone the appointment — it is easier to work out what is outstanding with your paperwork in front of us than over the phone.
Identification and the basics
- Photo ID, and Social Security numbers for yourself, your spouse and any dependents
- Last year’s return, if we did not prepare it
- Bank account and routing numbers, if you want a refund deposited directly
Last year’s return matters more than people expect. It carries forward the numbers that this year’s return depends on — capital loss carryovers, depreciation schedules, state credits — and without it those have to be reconstructed.
Income
- W-2s from every employer, including any you left partway through the year
- 1099s in all their forms: NEC and K for contract and platform work, INT and DIV for interest and dividends, B for brokerage sales, R for retirement distributions, G for unemployment or a state refund, SSA for Social Security
- K-1s from any partnership, S corporation or trust
- Records of income nobody reported for you — cash work, rent collected, goods sold
That last one is the category that causes trouble. Income does not stop being income because no form arrived, and matching programs catch more of it than people assume.
Deductions and credits
- Mortgage interest and property tax statements
- Charitable donation receipts, including the acknowledgement letter for anything over $250
- Medical expenses, if they were substantial
- Childcare provider details, including their tax ID
- Tuition statements and student loan interest
- Estimated tax payments you made during the year, with dates and amounts
If you run a business
Come with the books reconciled if you can — profit and loss, balance sheet, and the bank and credit card statements behind them. Add asset purchases, mileage logs, home-office square footage, and payroll filings.
If the books are not in a state you would want to hand anyone, say so. That is an ordinary situation and it is fixable; it is simply better to know before we start than halfway through.
What if a document is missing
Employers and financial institutions are required to send most of these, and most make them available online before the paper copy arrives. Transcripts of what has been reported to the IRS under your Social Security number can also be requested directly from the IRS, which is often faster than chasing a former employer.
Bring the list of what you cannot find. Knowing what is missing is halfway to replacing it.
Ready to get started? Call us for a free consultation, or read more about how we handle income tax preparation.