Dear Tax Client,
Happy New Year! We hope you have had a joy filled and restful holiday season. We write with important information about your taxes.
The link to our 2018 tax data organizer is below in green. Once you click, you can download and save the organizer to your desktop and then work within it over time. Be sure to save the document as you go! You need Adobe Acrobat.
Please read this email before completing your organizer.
1. Engagement Letter:
The first two pages of the attached organizer are our engagement letter. Please submit a signed engagement letter along with your completed organizer.
2. Smart Vault Portal:
We have been offering an encrypted portal to house and exchange tax documents for the last two years. Given the increase in computer hacking and potential data theft, we strongly urge you to sign up for and use this free service. To do so, please email us and we will send you a “Smart Vault invitation” with the instructions for creating a log in and password to activate your account. In addition to passing tax documents to us securely, having a Smart Vault account acts as a repository for your tax documents and returns that is accessible to you anytime. Also, please note, that we will not access your documents from other cloud service providers such as DropBox, Google Cloud, etc.
When you upload your documents, please combine your documents into as few PDFs as possible (i.e. rather than uploading 30 separate files, upload everything together in as few files as you can). We cannot print from photographs taken from mobile phones.
3. Tax Preparation Fees:
The 2018 tax act both simplified some discrete areas of tax preparation and increased complexity significantly in others. As a result, across the industry, tax preparation fees are increasing; we too will be increasing our fees. Our minimum fee for new clients is now $425. For returning clients, the increase in fees will depend on the tax return and the relevance of the tax code changes to your return. We will, as always, be as fair as possible and keep you apprised of any significant increases you may incur.
4. 1099s
This year, we are encouraging our clients to do their 1099s online. There are various online service providers; one that has received good feedback is www.efile4biz.com. It is low cost, convenient and they do the filing work for you! If you would like paper copies to complete by hand, we charge $10 to mail them to you. We are no longer completing 1099s in house.
