Although there are still a few hardy souls that fill in their tax forms by hand and mail them in, the vast majority of self-preparers use one of the software or online based tax programs to calculate and e-file their income taxes each year. This is much easier than the old way of doing taxes, but there are still many valid reasons for hiring a tax professional to assist you with your income taxes. Below are five of the best reasons to hire a tax professional.

It will save you time.

Even if you use a software program to file your taxes, there is still a lot of time involved once you get all your paperwork together. Make no mistake, whether you do taxes yourself or hire a professional, you will still have to maintain records and gather receipts to give to them. But with tax software, you still have to sit there and enter all the information. You also have to know how to answer some of the questions it will ask as you go through the process. If you don’t understand the question or know the right answer you are going to have to waste time figuring it out. Using a tax professional saves you all the time involved with actually filling out the taxes.

It will save you money.

A tax professional can save you money in two different ways. First, they will know about and help you with those hard to find rules and credits that can increase your refund or decrease what you owe. Tax deductions are good, but tax credits are money in your pocket. Tax software may not know that the new house you bought last year can get you a credit. The other way is simply not making mistakes. Tax software all but eliminates math errors, but putting something in the wrong place or not checking a box, can make a huge difference. The wrong answer can cost you a lot of money.

It will save your peace of mind.

No matter how meticulous your record keeping and how carefully you fill out your taxes, there is always the fear that you did something wrong. Taking your best guess and hoping for the best is no way to approach tax season. Give yourself the peace of mind and confidence that your taxes have been prepared correctly by hiring a small business accountant to take care of your taxes.

It can lower your tax burden.

Using a tax professional, such as Padgett Business Services® doesn’t just save you money at tax time. We can guide you and make recommendations for the entire year. Maybe selling that stock on January 1st will save you a ton of money over selling it on December 31st. Maybe buying this investment doesn’t help you, but that one will earn you a huge tax credit. Everyone makes financial decisions all year long. Having a tax professional in your corner can help you make the right one, at least from a tax liability perspective.

You have help in case of an audit or review.

Audits are everyone’s biggest fear when thinking about income taxes. If you do the taxes on your own and get audited, you are also on your own when you get in front of the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency). And make no mistake, they know what they are talking about and will have questions you may not be able to answer. Using a tax professional means, you are much less likely to be audited, since they know the pitfalls to avoid, but if you are, they will be there with you to answer questions and come to your defense.

If you want to save some money and do something yourself, cut your own grass or wash your own car. Income taxes have become far too complicated to rely on whether you clicked the right key in a tax software package. Save yourself time, money and aggravation. Hire Padgett Business Services® – your Calgary accountants and tax professionals.