Tax season is upon and that means its time to start watching for a gathering your documents for tax preparation. Here is some information to get the ball rolling this year.
TAX DOCUMENTS:
We will be sending out tax questionnaires and organizers in the next 1-2 weeks. Please be on the lookout for these. Most routine documents such as W-2s, 1099s, mortgage interest, etc are mailed by 1/31/2022. Tax packages from brokerages typically come out later, and as late as March. Here are some tips to make the tax filing process a bit easier for everyone.
- Be as complete as you can when completing the questionnaire. We require this information every year as your situation may change each year. We cannot start your return without it.
- If you answer yes to any questions below, we will almost always require additional explanation or documents. Providing this information the first time will keep your fees from increasing and expedite the completion of your return.
- Please do not use highlighters (other than yellow) to highlight information on your tax documents. We scan all documents and highlight usually results in the underlying information to be unreadable.
- Please don’t take photos of your documents and send them to us. The images are usually too large or too blurry once we import them into our system. If you have one or two documents, we recommend the smartphone app ScanPro which allows you to take a picture and the app converts it to a very legible PDF file that you can email from your phone.
- If you have several documents in PDF format to upload to the portal, we recommend saving them all on your computer in a folder such as “2021 Tax Documents” and then uploading them all at once. This way, when we see the upload, we know everything is complete and we can start the preparation process. Otherwise, if we see a handful of documents, we may assume we have everything and we will start, only to discover there is a lot of missing information. The other alternative is to give us a heads-up that more information is coming, and you will contact us when everything is complete.
- We do not recommend emailing any documents that contain sensitive information such as social security numbers or bank information. Instead, please either use our portal, mail the document, or drop it off.
- We do not need all your receipts or bank statements (unless we are doing your bookkeeping for a business and we request them). For example, please do not provide all your receipts for medical expenses. A summary is perfect. The same is true for most charitable contribution statements. You should hold on to your receipts for your own documentation, but we do not need them if you have summarized the information.
- Please be aware of our deadlines. For some of our clients, we have set up specific weeks we would like your information. We will be sending reminders a few weeks before that target dropoff week. If you do not have a specific week, the sooner you can bring in your information, the better. Our deadline to receive all your information for individual income tax returns is March 15, 2022. If you submit your information after this date, it is likely we will need to extend your return.
- If you are missing just one document, such as a K-1 from a business you own or a brokerage statement, please bring in everything else and let us know what is missing and when you expect to receive it.
You can deliver your documents to us using one of three ways:
- Mail your documents to Flatiron Advisors, P.O. Box 271290, Louisville, CO 80027
- Upload documents to your portal at flatironadvisors.sharefile.com
- Drop off at our Regus office at 4770 Baseline Rd, Suite 200, Boulder, CO 80301. Hours are Monday – Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. We are not normally at the office, but no appointment is needed since the office is staffed by professional office staff who will take your documents and lock them up until we pick them up.
