The way you prepare your taxes could be changing?
No matter what you think about our President, I'm willing to bet that his stance on taxes has caught your attention.
In fact, I can guarantee you that this latest developments has caught the attention of the H&R Blocks and “tax prep focused” CPAs around the U.S.
President Trump and the IRS has recently revealed a new way for Americans to file their taxes and it has something do with a form the size of a postcard.
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Filing your taxes on postcards
This new way to file is supposed to streamline, declutter, and cut down the time spent on a return. Oh and before I forget, did I mention that the new return is going to fit all your info on a form the size of a postcard.Sounds interesting doesn’t it. Well, to be clear the form is actually the size of a two sided postcard with about 23 fewer lines than the current 1040.
In theory this change could cause a lot of tax prep businesses to go the way of the Dodo bird or better yet the vhs focused Blockbuster chains.
But change is difficult and whether or not the filing process is simplified won’t affect my practice much.
Our focus here at Washington Advisory is center more around adding value and delivering holistic CPA services.
We focus primarily on solving the issues that business owners face, like reducing taxable income, crafting employer friendly but employee rewarding 401k plans, or implementing an entity change at the moment it makes the most sense.
The Tax Prep business is changing and it’s something that the “prep” guys have known for a while.
If you follow the money and imagine a world without lobbyists your tax prep experience could be simpler. Just look towards Europe and Asia for an idea of how this would look. In countries like Denmark, Sweden and even China, this simplification is happening.
Those country’s citizens either have the option of reviewing and filing a government prepared “pre-populated return” or not filing at all.
But of course there’s Pros and Cons on the topic of whether to simplify your tax return.
The benefit of simplification may save you time which is valuable, while the downside of the change may cause you to give up some control at year end which could lead to paying more money than you have to.
This and other tax reform debates will likely continue well into the future.
As always, have any questions feel free reach out to us.