Getting organized for tax season can save you headaches, time, and money, so today I’m going to focus on several tips aimed at making tax season a little more pleasurable, and as my mom would say, better than a sharp stick in the eye.

Tip #1 for getting organized: Get on your tax advisor’s calendar

Many tax advisors operate on a first-come first-served basis, meaning that the clients who get all the forms, receipts, etc to them get their taxes done sooner. So it’s best to make an appointment (well, yesterday) to sit down with him or her and hand everything off. Plus, this will give you the motivation to gather everything together before meeting with your tax person.

Tip #2: Get a tax prep checklist

Mmm, mmm. I love me a good checklist! This can be your guide as you gather the myriad of tax forms and receipts to make sure that you don’t forget anything important. Get yourself a folder, staple the checklist to the front, then, start checking the boxes as you receive and compile all of your tax documents. That way, you have a clear visual of where you stand, what you’re waiting on, and what you need to go searching for.

TurboTax has a pretty thorough pdf checklist available for free online, and I will link to it in the show notes, which you can find in iTunes by searching for the One Minute Retirement Tip.

Tax Prep Checklist: https://digitalasset.intuit.com/DOCUMENT/A44724mxI/TurboTax_TaxPrepChecklist.pdf

Tip #3: Plan to file early

By tricking yourself that the tax filing deadline is say, March 1st, you can get organized sooner, file your taxes early, and be done with it!

This is especially helpful if you file your own taxes, and it can help prevent tax fraud as well. If you’ve already beaten fraudsters to the punch by filing your taxes early, they won’t be able it to file a fake tax return and claim your refund, because you’ll have already done it!

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening.

Tomorrow we’re going to talk about why you should stop getting so excited about your tax refund.

My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

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