By Tim Frye

Anybody can jump into the tax preparation game for a few years and make decent seasonal scratch, but the serious money you can make four months a year is what separates the big dogs from the rest of the pack.

Making great money doing taxes is a challenging and ego-testing endeavor indeed, but once you get your game fully on point, you can make some REAL NICE MONEY doing taxes.

This article will show you a few ways to make big money as a tax preparer.

Develop Your Tax Preparer Skills

The difference between an incompetent tax preparer and a proficient one is easy to see for the client. They are so tied into their financial situation, and if you don’t make them comfortable with your level of knowledge, you won’t see them much longer.

And they certainly won’t be willing to pay a lot to work with you.

By contrast, once you are perceived as a true tax expert, clients will pay quite high fees to work with you. Many tax preparers who are true experts can gain an average “per head” fee of up to $400 per client. But this kind of earning power does not happen by accident.

You need to spend your first few years of doing taxes immersed in tax books and gain continuing certification if you want to make good money in the future.

Build Your Tax Client Base

Common sense tells you need to have clients to make money. So the next logical step in that equation is to have as many clients as possible.

When you prepare taxes, you have to be diligent in the understanding that this person could come to you every year for their ENTIRE life if you do a superb job.

The true value of a tax client is not in a one-time transaction, but in the lifetime value of doing that person’s taxes for so long year after year that before you know it you are doing that person’s kid’s taxes.

There are not many businesses in which building a great client base is such a clear cut situation and of such immense importance. So as you build your foundation of clients, and do a great job, it is easier to keep those people and build upon that with new clients year after year for a lifetime…

Every time you sit down with a client, do everything you can to turn that client into a lifetime client…and your profits will increase.

Hang In There…Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day

The tax business is one of the most recession-proof jobs out there. The government will no doubt continue to tax people while simultaneously making the tax code illegible to most. So there will always be a need for tax preparation.

This does not, however, mean that you can just start doing taxes one year and make twenty thousand off the bat. It takes heart and resiliency to hang in this biz, because your first few years can be dishearten as you try and grow your client base and figure out the off season lack of income.

Looking for a way to keep your tax game sharp in the offseason? Check out RenewCTEC.com and our collection of tax education materials offered at low prices. Tax update courses of this variety can help move you into the expert category.

But one thing no one else can give you, that you must demand from yourself, is the patience and persistence to allow yourself to, little by little, start to make big money