Personal and Small Business Tax Preparation

End the April 15th panic

 
For many, April 15th is like the unpleasant deadline for a student's final exam. There's that feeling that something has been left undone or incomplete.
 
Approach April 15th with confidence this year, knowing that you're fully prepared. Spend the day doing something you enjoy, rather than scrambling to finish your taxes.
 
At the Connecticut Institute of Finance we not only prepare your taxes we plan them, Maximizing the Efficiency of Your Federal and State Tax Planning and Year-end Return.

 

Uncovering Your Needs

 
Beginning with tax preparation and planning we are able to uncover the basic needs of the client and maximize the efficiency of their tax return to minimize tax payments and maximize returns. We identify the areas and programs where clients are eligible to receive tax incentives for retirement plans, education planning, real estate investments, and many more areas.
 

Tired of tax preparer firms that are here today and gone tomorrow?

  • With Connecticut Institute of Finance you get:
    • Full time tax planners in an office that is open all year.
    • Private one-on-one appointments with your tax consultant.
    • Tax-planning appointments throughout the year.
    • Assistance available for audits and other tax concerns.
    • Year-round tax planning.
    • Preparation of federal & state tax returns and all accompanying schedules.
    • Electronic filing.
  • IRS Audit Assistance
    • If you ever you get a Federal IRS Income Tax audit letter we will be here to help.

Tax Preparation and planning 

 
For most individuals and small businesses the preparation, planning and submission of one's tax return is one of the most significant legal reporting requirements of the year. The current tax code is obtuse, complicated and bombastic; to quote Albert Einstein “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
 
The current tax code is approaching 4 million words every year over six billion hours are spent trying to comply with the tax filing requirements. (As stated in 2012 annual report as prepared by the National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E Olson). That is the equivalent of 8758 life times. What is the dollar cost to the nations? Well at $7.25 an hour (minimum wage) it would 43.5 billion dollars but the true cost has been calculated by the government Accountability Office at roughly 1 percent of GDP, which would be the equivalent of just under a 150 billion dollars. Unfortunately that figure does not include the cost that is created by inefficiencies and unintended economic consequences that a Gordian knot of byzantine tax codes creates. If you include those costs, the cost of tax compliance has been estimated at just over a trillion dollars. Since 2001 Congress has made nearly 5000 changes to the tax code. That's more than one change per day. The verbiage in the U.S. tax code is longer than seven versions of War and Peace and just under four times the number of words in all of the Harry Potter books put together.
 
At the Connecticut Institute of Finance each one of our preparers are “registered tax return prepares” as recognized by the IRS or are exempt from that requirement. Each preparer in the office is required minimally to take 15 hours of continuing education, 2 hours of ethics, 3 hours of federal tax law updates and 10 hours of other federal tax topics. At the Connecticut Institute of Finance we couple that minimal requirement with our own internal educational program which consists of an additional 60 hours of tax law instruction and study.
 
As a firm we are committed to getting you the largest refund or having the smallest tax liability as allowed by law. But more importantly, we will also help plan your taxes so in future years we can lower your tax liability, not only over your working life but in retirement and when you want to pass your wealth and assets to future generations or entities that represent your legacy.
 

Tax preparation and tax planning can be defined in the following way:

  • Tax preparation is the act of preparing a client's taxes and applying all the credits, deductions, tax codes, rules and regulations that are most beneficial to the tax client. These preparations can be relatively simple or complex depending on the economic activity of the client.
  • Tax planning is the act of changing a client's future economic activity so as to take advantage of the tax code to dramatically lower ones tax liability in the future.
  • So to sum up, tax preparation is where a tax professional acts as a score keeper and summarizes a client's economic actively in the most beneficial way so as to lower that clients tax liability for the previous year. It is reactive not proactive process. Tax planning is done for the current year or future years so as to create economic situations where we are actively lowering a client's tax liability. A statement that illustrates this (tongue in cheek) is that the difference between tax planning and tax fraud is based on when you do it. If you do it before December 31st of year end that's tax planning. If you try to do tax planning after December 31st of the tax year, that would be tax fraud. The first can save a lot of money, the latter gives you the opportunity to wear bright orange.