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Now, More Than Ever, You Need Your Tax Professional

by
Spencer Wilson
on
2/11/2019
Now, More Than Ever, You Need Your Tax Professional

Think about everything that you could accomplish with a spare 17 hours of time each week.

You could get more work done at your job. Catch up on all that sleep you've been missing. Watch the extended versions of Peter Jackson's “Lord of the Rings” trilogy in one sitting – and then move right onto the equally mammoth “Hobbit” series of films, too.

Seventeen hours, by the way, is the average amount of time that most people spend in trying to figure out their personal tax paperwork – according to a study recently released by the American Action Forum. To put that into perspective, roughly 150 million people spend a combined 2.6 billion hours every year wading through paperwork and filling out forms, to a total amount of hours that breaks down to about two full workdays per person. If you're talking about business taxes, that number balloons exponentially, as the same study revealed that the average organization spends about 275 hours every year preparing taxes.

Taxes are as complicated as they are irritating – you'd be hard-pressed to find someone on the other side of this issue. But it's also important to note that these numbers are from prior to the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. These days, even seasoned tax professionals who have been in the industry for decades are having a hard time figuring out what changed and what they need to do for their clients.

All of this is to say that taxes are clearly a situation that is only going to get worse before it gets better, which is why if you don't already have a tax professional lined up to help you get ready for April, now would be an excellent time to find one.

“The Only Two Certainties in Life Are Death and Taxes”

To put how complicated things are getting into a little bit of perspective, consider the fact that the United States tax code was made up of only 409,000 words in 1955. Flash forward to today, and it's now about 2.4 million words long – about six times larger than it was originally, and about twice as long as it was in 1985.

All of this was supposed to change with the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – something that was billed as the single biggest positive adjustment to taxes in decades. If you turned on cable news in the days leading up to the December 2017 passing of the bill, you would have seen commentators talk on and on about how “tax preparation was about to get simple.”

By all accounts, that probably isn't as true as we'd like it to be.

Experts agree that a lot of the new laws are not just very complex – they're also often vaguely written. This means that people trying to do their own taxes are going to require even more time to research implications and figure out how to best prepare their returns for an ideal outcome. Up to six new schedules may be required for some people, and business owners will also face increased challenges.

Adding to this anxiety is the fact that the April filing deadline isn't even here yet – meaning that people are only just now starting to get a real idea of how things have changed, the scope of those changes, and what this means for businesses and personal tax filers alike moving forward.

In the end, the most important thing to understand is that it's always been a good idea to enlist the help of a trained tax professional to make sure that you satisfy Uncle Sam in a way that creates a mutually beneficial situation for everyone involved. But in an era where taxes aren't just getting more complicated but also more uncertain, it's overwhelmingly clear that anyone with even a modestly complex situation would be better served by working with a fire-star pro this year. At a certain point, having someone do your taxes for you is no longer a recommendation – it's largely a requirement.

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Spencer Wilson

Spencer Wilson

Spencer Wilson, EA is a tax preparer based in Long Beach, CA. Spencer Wilson Financial Management Services has been serving the Greater Los Angeles Area and Orange County since 2004. <br /> We began in the heart of Naples in Long Beach and we continue to work hard offering tax preparation and planning, business accounting and bookkeeping and payroll services . <br /> We have helped many different people and businesses succeed financially and take control over their finances.

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