Know What Your Tax Preparer is Really Doing?

When you hire someone to prepare your taxes, how much do you know about what they are doing with it? Do you review your return with them before they file it? Do you receive some sort of confirmation that your return was actually submitted to the IRS by them?

All too often people despise doing their taxes so much, they just hand over everything to a tax preparer and leave it at that. I don't recommend you do it that way. Yes, once you find a honest and credible preparer that has been doing your returns correctly for a few years, it may be possible to let the reins go a bit, but never to the point that they do it all. It's just smart business to know what's going on with your income tax returns, not to mention, it could keep you out of some very HOT water.

I always suggest that you prepare your taxes atleast once. One of the reasons, is because you are ultimately responsible for them. If you have no idea how or what is supposed to be done, how are you going to know if your tax preparer is doing it right, or at all for that matter?

I received this article from accountingweb.com this morning in my inbox. 3 tax preparers have been sentenced to jail time for evading not only their own taxes, but a client's as well.

Dishonest Tax Preparers Get Jail Time