Protect Your Family and Your Wealth

When you have an estate plan you protect your family and your wealth. Do you have an estate plan yet? If not, how do you plan to ensure your assets end up in the right hands?

Protect Your Family and Your Wealth. An image of a senior citizen writing a will on a red background.
Protect your family and your wealth.
What is an Estate Plan?

An estate plan outlines how to manage and distribute a person’s assets and property after their death or incapacity. This set of legal documents and strategies can include a will, trust, power of attorney, and other documents.

Together, these materials provide guidance on how to carry out a person’s wishes while protecting their family and loved ones. They do this by distributing the person’s assets according to their wishes, rather than by state law.

How Do Estate Plans Protect Your Family?

Estate plans protect an individual’s family and loved ones in a variety of ways, some less obvious than others.

Most obviously, a will allows a person to specify who will inherit their property and assets, and in what proportion. Trusts can protect assets for the benefit of family members, like children or grandchildren, and to provide for their financial needs.

But they can help provide for an individual’s family and loved ones prior to their death. Say a person becomes incapacitated, estate plans can provide for their care through powers of attorney and health care directives. They appoint someone to make financial and medical decisions on someone’s behalf if they are unable to do so themselves.

This helps to prevent disputes and ensure a person’s wishes are respected. It also protects their wealth from misuse by making it harder for anyone squander it.

Additionally, estate plans can help to minimize taxes and legal expenses, which reduces the burden on a person’s family. Further, in certain circumstances they help the estate avoid the time-consuming and expensive processes in probate court.

How Do Estate Plans Protect Your Wealth?
Image of estate planning law books in dark red and gold trim.

Again, estate plans can also protect a person’s wealth by minimizing taxes and legal expenses. Trusts, for example, minimize estate taxes and avoid the probate process.

In the event an individual becomes incapacitated, estate plans can provide for the continuity of their business or professional practice. Business succession planning can help to ensure that the business continues to operate smoothly, which also protects that person’s wealth.

Worried that you haven’t protected your family and wealth with a proper estate plan? Relax! Our estate planning professionals can help you create a plan that respects your wishes and protects your loved ones and assets. We work with people from all walks of life and income levels. Whether you’re of modest means or have extensive asset holds, you can protect your interests. We’ll help you put in place the documents and legal instruments that can help you achieve your goals.

To learn how, call us 724-216-5180 or contact us online to schedule a consultation.

Tax Evasion-What Not to Do

Tax Evasion-What Not to Do. When the federal government couldn’t put together criminal charges on Al Capone, tax evasion brought him down. While he’s probably the most notorious tax evader, plenty of other high-profile tax evaders saw their days in court, too.

Tax Evasion-What Not to Do. Image of Scrabble pieces spelling Tax Law with a gray background and handcuffs.
Tax Law-What Not to Do
What Not to Do

Every so often, celebrities will make the headlines for massive tax evasion and tax fraud criminal cases. They often face time in prison and fines running into the tens of millions.

While you may not make gangster or celebrity-level income, choosing to avoid paying your taxes can land you in similar hot water with the IRS. I cannot stress enough that if you choose to “forget” to pay your taxes, the IRS will eventually find you.

Tax Evasion-What Not to Do. Image of an empty court room.
Tax Minimization Methods

Don’t try to ignore or run away from your tax liabilities. Instead, work with a tax professional to use many different tactics to minimize your taxes legally. Here’s just a short list of examples:

1. Municipal Bonds

When you purchase municipal securities you are in effect loaning a state or local government money for capital expenditures, the interest they pay are tax exempt for most taxpayers.

2. Max-out Retirement Accounts and Employee Benefits

Contributing to a workplace 401(k) or 403(b) plan does more than help solidify your nest egg for retirement. As of 2022, you can contribute up to $20,500 ($27,000 for those 50 and older) and reduce your taxable income.

3. Use a Health Savings Plan

If you use a high-deductible health insurance place, you can reduce your taxes with a health savings account (HSA). For 2022, individuals can contribute up to $3,600 a year ($7,300 for families) that are 100% tax deductible.

4. Claim Every Legal Tax Credit

Depending on your situation and income levels, you can claim credits for a lot of different expenses, including:

Earned Income (depending on income levels and number of children)

American Opportunity Tax Credit (during first four years of a student’s postsecondary education)

Saver’s Credit (depending on income levels and retirement contributions)

Child and Dependent Care Credit (depending on income levels and qualified expenses for the care of children and disabled dependents)

Quarterly Tax Payments

If you own a business or have Self-employment income, paying estimated quarterly taxes should become part of your operations. Anyone with rental property income or investments may also need to pay estimated quarterly taxes, even if the employer withholds taxes from their paychecks.

If you wait until the end of the year, you’ll likely have to face a massive bill. Not only that, but you may also face penalties for late payment on those quarterlies. Overestimating or underestimated earnings can get complicated, especially with the IRS wanting specifics forms for different scenarios.

Using Trusted Tax Professionals

All these options come with their own complications, which is why we recommend working with a trusted tax professional. Experts like those in our office can help you stay on the right side of the law. And we’ll ensure you pay the lowest possible taxes for your personal or business income. Additionally, follow along with our Tax Evasion-What Not to Do blog to stay on the up and up.

Schedule a consultation with our office at 724-216-0704 or use our online form.

Will You Find Yourself in a New Tax Bracket in 2023?

Will You Find Yourself in a New Tax Bracket in 2023? A few weeks ago, our friends at the IRS released their tax adjustments for 2023. (Feeling brave? You can check out the full report on their website.) Every year the IRS adjusts the taxable income brackets for inflation. As you can imagine, this year has seen a tremendous bump based on major spike inflation. And likely your income did not receive an equivalent bump, which could impact your current bracket.

Will You Find Yourself in a New Tax Bracket in 2023?
Why Brackets Matter

The IRS doesn’t charge taxpayers a flat rate. Instead, the United States operates on a progressive system using seven brackets, 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%. People with lower taxable incomes pay lower federal income tax rates. Additionally, those with higher taxable income pay a higher tax rate.

But whichever tax bracket you find yourself in, you don’t pay that percentage on your full taxable income. Instead, the IRS divides your income in chunks and each chunk gets taxed at the corresponding bracket rate. Nerd Wallet does a great job of breaking this down in comparable charts.

When the IRS raises their tax bracket limits, more of your income gets taxed at the lower tax rates. The government designed the annual realignment to avoid “tax bracket creep” where incomes get pushed into higher brackets with inflation.

A worn yellow pencils sitting on tax forms. Tax brackets, tax law, tax preparation, and resolving tax issues. Will You Find Yourself in a New Tax Bracket in 2023?
What Else Impacts Your Tax Bill?

Tax bracket adjustments aren’t the only thing that help you save money on your taxes. Also, every year, you can save money by taking advantage of applicable tax credits and tax deductions.

Tax credits won’t affect your bracket, but they reduce your taxes owed dollar for dollar. Tax deductions, whether itemized or standard, reduce your overall taxable income. By reducing your taxable income, you could fall into a lower bracket and pay a lower tax rate.

The Takeaway

Ultimately, you could see your paycheck increase in 2023 from the lower rates. At the same time, you may also find your tax bill at the end of year lower. As a reminder, though, you won’t feel those tax bill breaks until you file your 2023 taxes in April 2024.

Confused or overwhelmed? Relax! Our office provides tax return preparation services for businesses of all sizes and individuals. As we walk you through the process, we make sure you understand every step of the way. Because with our experience, we find every tax deduction we can to ensure you pay the lowest possible tax rate.

See how we can help minimize your tax responsibilities by calling our office at 724-216-5180 or contact us using our online form.

Will You Find Yourself in a New Tax Bracket in 2023? Image of the John A. Cochran, Esq red and white business card and tax forms.

Avoid Three Common Problems to Minimize Tax Pains

This winter you can avoid three common problems to minimize tax pains that will make tax time easier and quicker. While gorging on your kids’ candy and sipping a pumpkin spice latte, you probably don’t have taxes on your mind. But maybe you should. Individuals and business owners alike handle tax season much better when they prepare. Year over year, we see tax filers ensnared in easily avoidable pitfalls.

Avoid Three Common Problems to Minimize Tax Pains.
A black and yellow Caution sign that reads Caution: Tax Due Dates Are Closer Than They Appear.
Tax due dates will be here sooner than you think.
1. If You Don’t Have a Record of It, Don’t Try to Claim It

Maybe you legitimately paid for a new business computer but cannot find the receipt. You can always find the sales record somewhere. For example, you can check the card statement you used to purchase the item. Often the store itself can give you a copy of your bill of sale.

BUT don’t attempt to claim the personal laptop you bought for your kid for college. We both know that’s not a business expense. Guess what? The IRS will figure that out, too. Make several little “they’ll never notice” claims and you could expose yourself to costly penalties and undermine your creditability in dealing with the IRS.

Other murky areas that can raise red flags include:

Claiming utility costs for a home office (make sure you do it correctly).

Untraceable income to family members.

Lavish gifts.

Other expenses outsized for the level of income generated by a business.

Our advice: Be honest. That keeps you on the right side of an audit. When you have questions, don’t just guess at the answers or listen to some guy at a bar. Instead, ask a tax professional for advice.

2. I’ll Do It Tomorrow

Even if in school you worked “better under pressure” to study or write a paper, remember, taxes take time. You can’t cram for taxes by waiting until the last possible second.

When you wait until the 11th hour, you risk not having everything you need. Scrambling to organize paperwork the second week of April each year turns into risky business. Murphy’s Law will ensure important receipts will vanish or figures won’t add up correctly.

Our advice: Collate your receipts and record them (manually or automatically with software) throughout the year. Entering receipts periodically decreases the chance of losing important paperwork or gives you time to locate or replace lost items.

Bonus: You increase your chances of maximizing your deductions when you have time to consider all possible deductions thoughtfully.

3. Know What You Owe

Ever hear the expression: “you can’t use ignorance as a defense?” Know the full amount of your tax responsibilities. Many taxpayers find themselves in a bind by not being aware of their financial responsibilities.

Instead, go through everything honestly and find out the full extent of your obligations. If you come up shy, we can work out a plan to sort things out with the IRS. Being blissfully unaware does not exempt you and avoiding it will only make things worse.

Likewise, as we mentioned in previous blogs, if you receive a letter from the IRS, do not ignore it! We cannot stress this enough. Avoiding the letters, won’t make the problem go away. It will sit there and accrue more and more fees.

We have good news! You still have enough time to get things together, and we bet it’ll take less time than you think, too. So, deal with the shoebox under your desk, find a lost receipt, and get your paperwork organized.

You also have time to ask questions about allowable deductions and the best way to attack your unique tax situations. We can help. Our experienced tax professionals have helped hundreds of taxpayers just like you. If you can Avoid Three Common Problems to Minimize Tax Pains life will be easier come tax time! Contact our office at 724-216-5180 or use our online form to learn more.

Avoid Three Common Problems to Minimize Tax Pains. 
An image of the red and white John A. Cochran, Esq. business card with tax forms.

Keep Calm and Prepare Your Taxes Properly

Keep calm and prepare your taxes properly. In this age of misinformation, people can easily get duped into believing complete nonsense. We won’t get into any examples here apart from the recent hullabaloo concerning armed IRS agents. Let’s cut to the chase: NO, armed IRS agents will not show up at your door demanding back taxes. You are still protected by laws. Rather than feeding into the hype, the best thing you can do is keep calm and prepare your taxes properly.

Keep Calm and Prepare Your Taxes Properly. An image of a tax law book and accounting forms.
Keep calm and prepare your taxes properly. Relax, IRS agents aren’t coming directly for you.
How’d We Get Here?

It all began with a legitimate job posting for Criminal Investigation (CI) Special Agent positions. This is not a new unit. Once called the Intelligence Unit, the CI has existed in some form since 1919.

Currently, the CI has around 3,000 employees. Of those, only 2,100 serve as special agents who can carry firearms. These special agents investigate criminal tax violations (think Al Capone-level money laundering, national security, or defense matters). Last year alone, the CI identified more than $10 billion in tax fraud and other financial crimes.

Every year the CI loses 150-175 special agents due to retirements and attrition. This year, they hope to hire 300-350 special agents over the course of the entire year. When you consider the average annual losses, they looked to add a net gain of 150-175 special agents.

Prepare for the twist.

Social Media Mayhem

Hell hath no fury like fired-up conspiracy theorists, who falsely repeated claims the IRS was hiring 87,000 armed agents.

Keep Calm and Prepare Your Taxes Properly. Image of a U.S. Tax Court building.

After some rather impressive mental gymnastics, they connected the CI job posting to a recent U.S. Department of Treasury Report. The May 2021 report noted that the IRS could hire an additional 86,852 employees by 2031 from the Inflation Reduction Act.

For reference, the IRS currently has approximately 81,000 employees in total. The vast majority of those employees serve as civilian auditors and revenue collectors. Whether the IRS actually needs to (or could) add so many to their current headcount is another matter altogether.

And yet, that didn’t stop false claims that the IRS would somehow raise an army of “locked and loaded pencil pushers.” I cannot stress enough: Repeating a falsehood doesn’t make it true.

A Better Use of Your Time

Instead of getting caught up in the frenzy, you’re better off focusing on properly preparing your taxes. I’d make an “…or else” joke here, but don’t want to feed into the insanity.

Rather, we recommend you focus on carefully preparing your personal and business tax returns. Doing so will give you peace of mind and help your financial security.

A trained tax attorney can help you avoid audits or represent you if you find yourself being audited. Additionally, all indications are that the number of audits will slightly increase. Our experienced tax professionals have helped hundreds of taxpayers just like you.

We’ll help you prepare your taxes correctly and avoid audits of any kind. We can also debunk any additional myths for you about tax preparation or the IRS. Complete our online form or call us today at 724-216-5180 to learn more.

Keep Calm and Prepare Your Taxes Properly. A desaturated image of tax forms and calculators.

Know Your Legal Rights if You Get Audited

Everyone should Know Your Legal Rights if You Get Audited. No one likes to receive notice of questions about their tax return from the IRS or a State’s Department of Revenue. So, if you find yourself in this situation, you should know your legal rights. Each Department of Revenue for each state and the federal government provide specific taxpayer rights.

Know Your Legal Right if You Get Audited. An image of tax forms and money with a pencil.
Know Your Legal Rights if You Get Audited

State of Pennsylvania Taxpayers Bill of Rights

Pennsylvania taxpayers have a Bill of Rights that outlines standard processes and procedures that the Department of Revenue must follow. These ensure equal and fair treatment of all taxpayers.

These rights include:

  • The Right to Be Informed where you receive clear and understandable communication
  • The Right to Confidentiality to retain the security and confidentiality of tax returns and other information
  • The Right to Retain Representation by a CPA or attorney
  • The Right to Challenge the Department’s Position and Be Heard with a specific appeal process
Federal Taxpayers Bill of Rights

Further, the IRS operates under a similar set of procedures that include additional taxpayer rights. Additionally, should you receive notification of a federal audit of your tax returns, you have the following rights:

  • The Right to Be Informed so you know what you must do to comply with tax laws
  • The Right to Quality Service that includes prompt, courteous, and professional assistance
  • The Right to Pay No More than the Correct Amount of Tax where you only pay that amount legally due
  • The Right to Challenge the IRS’s Position and Be Heard with a response from the IRS in a timely fashion
  • The Right to Appeal an IRS Decision in an Independent Forum, including taking your case to court, if necessary
  • The Right to Finality with guidelines on maximum timelines for audits, challenges, and debt repayment
  • The Right to Privacy where any IRS action complies with the law and is no more intrusive than necessary
  • The Right to Confidentiality in that the IRS will not disclose any information provided without taxpayer authorization
  • The Right to Retain Representation, including assistance from a Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic if they cannot afford to retain representation
  • The Right to a Fair and Just Tax System that considers circumstances that might affect a taxpayer’s ability to comply

However, just knowing your rights as a taxpayer doesn’t mean you will automatically know the best course of action during an audit. An experienced tax attorney advocating for you during the process can help relieve your stress and minimize your tax liabilities.

Help With All Matters of Tax

Finally, if you have questions or need to resolve a matter with federal or state tax auditors, RELAX. Likewise, as experienced tax attorneys, it’s our job to protect your interests throughout the audit and guide you to a resolution for your situation. Call our office today at 724-216-5180 or complete our online form to learn more.

Know Your Legal Rights if You Get Audited. Scrabble letters spelling Tax Law on a grey background.

Estate Planning for Your Kids

Estate Planning for Your Kids discusses some planning steps you can take for your children. No one likes to think about their death. But just like taxes, death is inevitable. So, when you meet your end, do you know who will inherit your possessions? If you have kids, how will you ensure they will receive and further know how to handle their inheritances? Don’t assume the answers to those questions unless you have an estate plan. Therefore, you think of personal estate planning as a benefit for your kids, and not just a subject to avoid or be put off.

Estate Planning for Your Kids. Image of an Estate Planning book with inheritance tax and living trust forms with bokeh lights in orange and yellow in background.
Plan to help make life a little easier for your children.
Your Lack of Planning Causes More Pain

When you fail to put your financial affairs in order, your children will deal with the consequences. If that’s what you want, quit reading right now. We can’t help you.

But if you want to ensure you’ve taken care of your kids, you need to know how to plan. Adult children in particular can face several common problems when their parents fail to plan properly. Such as the location of and title to the parent’s assets. Assets may be titled to be automatically distributed to a party or in a percentage to a party that you were unaware of; the adverse is possible as well.

Apart from that, they can also face unexpected inheritance taxes or not knowing where to find financial account information. Just placing someone’s name on an account doesn’t automatically mean they know it exists…or how to handle it.

To make matters more complicated, inheritance laws vary from state to state.

Communicate Wishes

Many parents do an amazing job teaching their children about budgeting, saving, and investing. Yet, they fail to communicate any information whatsoever about their inheritances. Consider this your final and most important financial lesson.

Parents often just assume children will know what they’ll inherit and how to handle the process to receive it. But this ambiguity can lead to some nasty consequences after your death if you don’t make your wishes clear.

Hold a good old-fashioned family meeting to share estate plans with everyone. If that’s not possible, make sure you have frank conversations with each of your heirs. Either way, provide written plans with specifics that spell out who gets what (and when, if applicable). Make sure they each know where to find copies of legal documents, too.

Many financial advisors also recommend their clients arrange a time for them to meet with their heirs. This allows your children to ask questions and meet the person helping with financial matters after their parent’s death. They’ve found that having a familiar face can ease the transition during a time of grieving.

Setting Your Kids Up

It doesn’t matter whether you are of modest means or have extensive asset holdings, put the right documents in place. This will ensure you’ve protected your loved ones and the property you’ve passed down to them.

Working with an experienced estate planning attorney can ensure you structure your assets in a way to minimize or even eliminate inheritance taxation. When you come to our office, we listen carefully to your values and your goals.

We can help with:

Will preparation

Advance health care declarations

Powers of attorney

Trust creation and administration

Business succession planning

Probate administration

Estate Planning for Your Kids. Closeup of a hand signing a will in black & white.

Set your finances up to protect your children’s interests. Our law office exists to protect your rights and your money. Call us at 724-216-5180 or complete our online form to learn how.

Tax Planning for Consistency

Tax Planning for Consistency is a blog that goes right along with our previous tax planning article to eliminate surprises and save money. Now that the dust has settled with tax season, let’s take a look back at what happened. Were you surprised by how little you got back in your refund this year? Or maybe you owed more than you’d expected? Safe to say, surprises from the IRS generally don’t mean good news. When you do tax planning for consistency every year, you’ll find you’re less and less surprised each April. But you have to do your homework… or know someone who can help you.

Tax Planning for Consistency. A blue, white, and black graphic of the word TAX and a calculator and calendar.
Were you surprised by how little you got back in your refund this year?
Better Planning Eliminates Surprises

Instead of waiting until somewhere around mid-April to get a handle on your tax responsibilities, review them quarterly. If you own a small business, that means making payments or submitting loss statements on quarterly tax estimates.

Additionally, review your purchasing needs for new equipment or evaluate how other expenses might impact your tax responsibilities. Consider any new employees or contracts you’ve taken on. This is also a good time to review profits and losses to help you better plan for the next quarter.

Not only that, but you can also get a better idea of how well you’ve accounted for year-end taxes. Also, by sending accurate quarter tax estimate payments you eliminate those pesky late penalties the IRS loves to tack on.

When you take time to plan out your strategy, you can attack your taxes each year in more manageable chunks. Then you get a more consistent (and reliable) idea of your tax liability.

Changes in Tax Law

The IRS likes to keep everyone on their toes by changing the rules every year. Everything from standard deduction and tax brackets shifts pretty much annually. But pandemic-related tax provisions made things even more complicated, especially when they went away.

Occasionally, changes in tax laws work to your advantage, but sometimes only temporarily. For example, the child and dependent care credit boosted the maximum credit percentage in 2021 (up to 50%) dropped to 35%. And while it was fully refundable in 2021, that’s no longer the case in 2022.

But more likely you saw things like unemployment income taxed again. In 2020, the American Rescue Plan allowed impacted individuals to waive up to $10,200 of paid unemployment. In 2021? If you didn’t already withhold taxes from your benefits, unemployment compensation taxation may have come as a surprise.

Finally, unsure of how to get started? Relax! Our experienced tax professionals have helped hundreds of taxpayers just like you. We’ll help you understand how the latest changes in the tax code might affect you. And we’ll help you plan your year for better consistency. Complete our online form or call us today at 724-216-5180 to learn more.

Cut those taxes by investing in a consistent tax planning strategy.

Five Benefits of Tax Planning

Five Benefits of Tax Planning covers five reasons why a proper tax plan saves you time, money, and stress. Now that April’s rush to file taxes on time has settled down, let’s talk 2022 taxes returns! I can hear you groaning from my office. You probably don’t want me to tell you this, but some people need reminding. I’ll spare you the lecture and give you five benefits of tax planning.

Five Benefits of Tax Planning. An image of a To Do list with the words Tax Planning and a desk and computer in the background.
Tax planning saves you time, money, and stress.
Quarterly Reviews

Next year’s tax return probably doesn’t rank very high on your list of priorities right now, does it? But when you take the time to make incremental adjustments during the year, your April will feel much less painful.

Whether you file personal or business returns or both, quarterly reviews help you get more organized for April. Businesses need to file quarterly estimates and quarterly reviews help to decrease the pain of those sessions, too.

The Payoff of Planning

1. Less Stress

I don’t know anyone, including adrenaline junkies, who enjoys scrambling around looking for lost receipts at the last minute. When you plan out a bit of work each quarter, that work creates much less stress ahead of filing.

2. Fewer Errors

Less stress and more time to check your work will also result in fewer errors. Tax return errors, especially when you file yourself, can get incredibly expensive if you mess something up. You also have time to run questions by a tax planning professional to further reduce your chance of error.

3. Avoid Penalties

When you wait to file taxes until the last minute, you may miss something that you should’ve submitted. By the time the IRS is ​kind enough to tell you, they’ve usually already tacked on penalties for filing late. Penalties continue to accrue interest until you pay off the principal, too. Ultimately, this makes the bill much more expensive than the original amount.

4. Minimize Tax Liability

With proper time to plan, you can also make more strategic decisions on how to minimize how much you owe. Maybe you decide to make a larger purchase this year or increase your retirement savings contributions. If you wait until the last minute, you won’t have time to adjust your course.

5. Research New Tax Laws

As you adjust your course, you can also see how new tax laws impact your current plan. The IRS loves to come up with new laws every year. If you don’t keep up with them, you can leave money on the table or end up owing more.

Need help getting it together for next tax season? Our experienced tax law professionals can help you minimize any taxes you owe and ensure you comply with all applicable laws. We can do a much better job together if we talk regularly throughout the year. And you’ll learn way more than just these five benefits of tax planning. Complete our online form or call us today at 724-216-5180 to learn more.

John A. Cochran, Esq. logo in black and white.

kind enough to tell you, they’ve usually already tacked on penalties for filing late. Penalties continue to accrue interest until you pay off the principal, too. Ultimately, this makes the bill much more expensive than the original amount. 4. Minimize Tax Liability With proper time to plan, you can also make more strategic decisions on how to minimize how much you owe. Maybe you decide to make a larger purchase this year or increase your retirement savings contributions. If you wait until the last minute, you won’t have time to adjust your course. 5. Research New Tax Laws As you adjust your course, you can also see how new tax laws impact your current plan. The IRS loves to come up with new laws every year . If you don’t keep up with them, you can leave money on the table or end up owing more.

Expect Massive Delays in Processing Your Tax Return This Year

Every year, the IRS seems to get just a little farther behind in getting tax refunds back to people. Throw in the processing of Economic Impact Payments and you’ve got yourself a royal mess. In January, the Treasury Department warned taxpayers to expect massive delays in processing of your tax returns this year. That’s just great, right? But…relax! Below we offer some tips on how to get your cash back as soon as possible.

Expect Massive Delays in Processing Your Tax Return This Year. An image of the red and white John A. Cochran, Esquire business card and some tax forms.
You can probably expect massive delays in processing your tax return this year.
File ASAP

The early bird gets the refund faster. If you put your return in the queue earlier, there will be fewer returns ahead of yours to process. Keep your files organized and ready to go. If you haven’t gotten organized yet, make it a priority. The IRS is still saying they’ll strive to process refunds within 21 days of receipt. And that theoretically can happen for you if you file your return early and don’t raise any red flags.

File Electronically

To expedite your tax refund process, move away from paper submission. Filing paper returns requires time-intensive, manual processing. To ensure a smoother process, file electronically with direct deposit to avoid delays in process, receiving refunds, or notices from the IRS. More than 90% of 160 million people who file taxes submit their returns electronically. You can also check the status of your refund on the IRS’s Where’s My Refund? page.

Have Documentation for Everything

Whether you file a simple W-2 each year or a complicated small business owner return, have documentation for everything. Have your documentation saved electronically for easy access should you be asked to provide proof of anything in your submission. Any questionable numbers will increase your odds of an audit. Make sure the numbers match on the forms before you submit your return. Anything you’re unsure about leads into our next recommendation…

Don’t Guess, Ask an Expert

Even if you think you have a simple preparation process, rules change all the time. If you can’t easily locate an answer to your question, don’t just guess at what to do. Take the time to ask an expert. Even the big online processing companies have an option to connect with a CPA. The small fee for a consultation could end up saving you thousands in the long run. If you have an especially complex situation, your best bet is to enlist the help of an experienced tax attorney.

Expect Massive Delays in Processing Your Tax return This Year. An image of the John A. Cochran, Esq. re business card with scrabble pieces written out CPA and Tax Law.
Exercise Patience

Fun fact: the IRS has been running with the same number of staff since the 1970s, despite the American population increasing by 60% since then. Nearly 75% of American taxpayers expect a refund each year, so you’re not alone. Many people count on their tax return to fund vacations or use it pay down debt. However, depending on those refund checks coming in by a certain time can backfire on you. As of December 31, 2021, six million people were still waiting for the IRS to process their 2020 returns. As frustrating as this delay is, there’s nothing you can do. ​

In conclusion, we hope this blog, Expect Massive Delays in Processing Your Tax Return This Year helps with your tax preparation plans. Need help getting your taxes ready or have a question? Our experienced tax professionals can help you minimize any taxes you owe and ensure you comply with all applicable laws. Complete our online form or call us today at 724-216-5180 to learn more.