This is the eighth installment of our monthly tax blog on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Over the last seven months we, at Isler CPA, have been sharing with you selected sections of the new tax law and the impact it may have on your personal and business tax returns.
In order to make sure we are providing you with the best possible tax service, guidance, and advice we have been attending continuing education classes, studying IRS guidance, and learning as much as we can about the new tax law. Ultimately, the impact of the new tax law on your personal tax situation is what matters most to us.
With that said, we want to let you know that we are still waiting on additional guidance from the IRS around certain sections and aspects of the new tax law. The new tax law was passed by Congress in a few months back in 2017, which meant that Congress didn’t address certain issues or complications that the new law raised. This has left tax professionals throughout the country, including us, with questions about how to apply certain sections of the new law.
The reason why we are sharing this with you today is to ask for some help from our clients. The coming of the new year means that tax season is right around the corner and tax returns will be due starting in March (for various business tax returns) and April (personal tax returns). During this time of year, we usually have the opportunity to talk with you about your personal tax situation and to prepare your tax returns. Undoubtedly, as you mail in, drop off, or provide us with your tax information, you will have questions. We welcome these questions and expect them.
The first thing we would like to ask is to please be patient with us as we do our best to answer all your questions. As discussed above, there are still gray areas of the new tax law for which we are waiting on additional guidance. We will do our best to answer your questions with the best available information we have. However, due to some of the gray areas we may not be able to answer all your questions as quickly or completely as we would like.
Second, we would like to ask for your help with providing us with your tax information as soon as reasonably possible in order to prepare your return. The sooner we are able to begin the preparation of your personal and / or business tax returns, the more time we will have to address the various issues that may arise due to the new tax law. In addition, the more time we have to address those issues the better we will be able to handle them on your tax return. We understand that everyone’s situation is different and that some of our clients will not be able to provide their tax information as soon as other clients. If you have questions about when and how to provide your tax information to us, please contact your CPA and he or she will be happy to discuss it with you.
Finally, we ask for your help in understanding that due to the new tax law, additional work may be required to be performed in order to prepare your person and / or business tax returns. Due to this additional work, there may be some additional tax preparation fees associated with the preparation of your individual and / or business tax returns. We ask for your understanding that we are not trying to raise your fees arbitrarily. The new tax law has created new deductions, eliminated deductions, and created some additional complexities around the preparation of individual and business tax returns which we need to account for in our fees. We understand that each of our clients are unique and have different situations and therefore, additional fees won’t be associated with all of our clients. If you have any questions about our fees, please contact your CPA and he or she will be happy to discuss them with you.
In closing, we hope you had a great year in 2018 and we are looking forward to working with you in 2019 and continuing as your trusted tax advisors.