One of our current School of Tax Strategy students recently sent this note to me:
"I need to start my legitimate business to be able to write off my leisure (golf, travel). I now am better educated than my tax preparer....scary."
Is this really possible? Unfortunately, the answer is yes!!! Too often I speak to prospective clients who really do know more than their tax preparer. The reason may be that their tax preparer really has very little education or it may be that the client has received a lot of education, such as anyone who is a member of our monthly School of Tax Strategy, receives.
Whatever the reason, when you know more than your tax preparer, it's time to get a new tax preparer. How do you choose? The best way is to interview and few of them and listen closely to the questions they ask you. Remember that the key to a good advisor is always found in the questions they ask you. You have the facts and the answer depends largely on the facts. So what questions should they ask you?
First, a good advisor will ask you about you, your goals, your business and investments and your family. Next, they will ask how you feel about taxes and how aggressive in the law you would like to be. Third, they will ask you about your specific concerns and where you want to concentrate the efforts of the advisor. Last but not least, they will ask how you prefer to work with your advisors. Is it once a year, once a month or once a week?
It's pretty easy to tell how much an advisor cares about your situation by the questions they ask. And at the same time, it will be pretty evident how much they know.
So I put this question out to you readers - Do you feel like you know more about taxes than your tax preparer? Let me know what you think.
Warmest regards,
Tom