Common Tax Mistakes a Good CPA Can Help You Avoid

Every year, many an Austin CPA ends up catching a large number of errors in their clients’ tax paperwork that could cause real problems with their filing. These problems are understandable because tax law can be confusing to so many people without proper training. However, it is essential to hire a CPA who can catch these problems.

Very Obvious Paperwork Mistakes

The most common problems CPA professionals find with tax paperwork are very obvious mistakes and errors that it’s hard to believe people will make. For example, a typical error of this type may include accidentally misspelling the name on the paperwork. This may seem like a silly or incidental problem to many people. However, it can cause the taxes to come back rejected and impossible to finish.

As a result, a good CPA will go over all of this paperwork multiple times to look for errors of this type. Their main goal is to identify potential flaws that could pop up without a person even realizing it. Once they have gone through all of the paperwork and found these issues, they can correct them with new paperwork to ensure that their clients get the proper tax returns that they want and deserve.

Incredibly Basic Math and Calculation Problems

Did you know that the IRS finds nearly three million – yes, million – basic math errors every year in tax returns? In some ways, we’re impressed – that’s a lot less than we would have thought, to be honest! However, those math errors can cause some problems with your returns by giving you back less than you thought. While the IRS doesn’t penalize you, they do use their calculations instead of yours.

Thankfully, a good CPA can spot these problems and correct them before your taxes are submitted. In this way, they’ll do what they can to cut back on potential errors and ensure that you don’t lose out on money. Just as importantly, these steps help to ensure that you don’t plan on using this money for something important and end up costing yourself even more money and end up in a tough scenario.

Somehow Choosing the Wrong Filing Status

The IRS has five filing statuses from which you can choose: single, head of household, married filing jointly, married filing separately, and qualifying widow. These terms seem quite obvious and hard to mistake, but many people make errors every year. For example, a single person may choose “head of household” even if they live alone, confusing the IRS and causing troubles with their taxes.

Thankfully, sorting through this mistake is fairly easy for most CPA professionals to do. Long before a person ever starts filing their taxes, the CPA will sit down with them and ask about their current status. They’ll then help them choose one that makes the most sense for their needs. For example, some married couples may do better filing separately than they would if they filed together.

Not Catching Super Beneficial Tax Deductions

Tax deductions help to ensure that you don’t spend too much money every year but they can be hard to catch if you are uncertain. Too many people either don’t choose enough deductions or try to avoid problems by limiting the number of deductions that they claim every year on their taxes.

Thankfully, your CPA can catch all of these deductions by going through the list of available options and figuring out which suits your needs the best. These professionals will go through each step of this process with you, figuring out exactly how much you can save. Though it may take a little bit longer than you may want, this step is still the best to take if you want to succeed in your filing.

Also Read: How Much Does It Usually Cost to Hire a CPA?