January 2018 is fast approaching, which means that the tax season is almost here!
Here at BoomTax, we are hard at work preparing to release our Tax Year 2017 product. You may have noticed a few changes to our homepage. If you haven’t already, create your free account today and keep an eye out for our announcement coming soon!
In the meantime, here are a couple of tips to help you and your employees prepare for the upcoming tax season.
Tax Season Deadlines
If you haven’t already, make sure you mark the IRS reporting deadlines that apply to your filings. Set regular reminders to ensure you don’t wind up in a last-minute frenzy to submit your filing. Review ACA reporting deadlines and 1099 reporting deadlines for Tax Year 2017.
Plan Ahead & Get Organized
It may benefit you to set aside a day to review what information you have and will need in preparation for filing. Once you know what information you’ll need, make sure you know just where to find it.
If you haven’t logged in to your BoomTax account lately, take a minute to log on and have a look around. Figure out which type of information returns you need to file and then download our Excel templates to start inputting your data so that it’s ready to drag, drop and upload when you’re ready.
Report Name Changes
Advise your employee to timely notify the Social Security Administration if they or their dependents recently got married, divorced, or otherwise changed their legal name. This will help to ensure that their new name on their tax returns matches with their Social Security Number (SSN). Failing to do so could result in problems during the processing of their tax returns.
Renew Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers
If any of your employees use an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), you should advise that they check to make sure their number is not expired or will not expire this year. ITINs are normally issued by the IRS to taxpayers who do not have or are not eligible to obtain a Social Security Number from the Social Security Administration.
If their ITIN has expired or will expire this year and they will be filing a return in 2018, they should apply to renew their ITIN now in order to avoid certain disallowed tax credits and processing delays.
The IRS has stated the following regarding ITINs:
“Taxpayers who have not used their ITIN to file a federal return at least once in the last three years will see their number expire Dec. 31, 2017. Additionally, ITINs with middle digits 70, 71, 72 or 80 will also expire at the end of the year.”
-IRS Tax Tip 2017-57
The Importance of Verifying TIN Information
Remember that failing to include your employee or payee’s Taxpayer Identification Number (whether SSN, ITIN or EIN), or providing the wrong TIN, could result in your filing being rejected, thus requiring corrections, re-issuing of employee copies, and potential penalties from the IRS. It is crucial to verify that you have the correct employee or payee TIN information in order to avoid such consequences.
With TINCorrect, you can verify that your provided TINs match with the information on file with the IRS before submitting your tax forms. Sign up with TINCorrect today and get 10 matches for free!
Conclusion
By keeping these tips in mind, the tax season will be a breeze for you! Check out our Essential Guides for more information on each specific filing type and become a master at your filing.
BoomTax, The Boom Post, and its affiliates do not provide tax, legal or accounting advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal and accounting advisors prior to engaging in any transaction.
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