What is a Great Tax Preparer?
By Tim Frye
Tax preparation is an interesting profession. The product that is offered is one that much of the public needs, which means there is plenty of competition out there. The everyday tax preparer is competing against a tremendous amount of forces. They are fighting for clients with the big boys like HR Block and Jackson Hewett. They are fighting for clients with those small mom and pop preparer offices that are ubiquitous throughout the nation. They are even fighting with the customer himself, who many times will choose a prevalent and efficient do-it-yourself program like Turbo Tax. The bottom line is that if a person wants to make it big doing taxes, he needs to stand out. They need to be a great tax preparer. This article will take a look at the top traits of the prodigious tax preparer.
What Types of Tax Preparers are There?
First off, if a preparer wants to be proficient and popular, they need to know what kind of preparer they truly are. They need to know their market, and understand their skill potential and develop the ones that the people want the most. Are you a CPA? And you are looking to deal with a high-end clientele or a single corporation and not do thousands of returns a year? Or are you an IRS designated enrolled agent or a tax attorney that is focusing much of your business on representing clients before the IRS and making most of your income from that? Or are you the self-employed tax preparer who has just opened up a small office and are looking to do any return, anyhow, anywhere?
Only after a tax preparer realizes his or her true role within the income tax’s cavernous realm, can they become someone special in that designated arena. It is hard to be good at all forms of taxes, simply due to the gargantuan size of the tax code. The best preparers out there have figured out their niche and perfected it, and don’t venture too far outside what they do best. This is the smartest way to become a great tax preparer.
Understand your Tax Code
The tax code and its tiny details later seem to fold on into eternity, and there are changes made to it more than just a few times a year. The best tax preparers are always paying attention to the tax code and its alterations. And this is why it is important to understand your niche in the game of tax preparation. This way you can focus on the parts of the code that matter most to you. Clients enjoy when they are getting the biggest benefit to their bank account. Whether that is through a drastically reduced tax liability or a huge refund back at the end of the year. Tax preparers can accomplish this for their clients be understanding the nuances of income tax, and help them navigate through this maze as unscathed as possible.
Be an Honest Tax Preparer
In order to truly excel as a tax preparer, you have to be completely honest with the government and your clients. The IRS considers tax preparers very vital agents and means for them to properly collect the debt owed by each individual taxpayer. So they are always looking for ways to crack down on fraudulent tax preparers, and are implementing new tests and continuing education hours that will eliminate incompetent tax preparers. So being honest with the IRS and not inflating your client’s deduction or roaming outside of the tax code and its provisions will keep you safe from being put out of business. And being honest with your client and not allowing inflating their own deductions will pay off in the long run as well. When it comes to most people they want to work with the tax preparers will keep them out of trouble, but will still provide them invaluable benefit.
If you are looking for ways to be the best tax preparer you can be, go to prontotaxclass.com and read our daily blogs that give you the information you need to go out there and make some great money!
