Satire (Oh, who am I kidding?)
Tax accountants are a genteel crowd with their pocket protectors and tape holding their glasses together, but commit a tax sin and get ready to assume the position. Genteel, yes. Also quick to fire back when an invisible line is crossed. Below are some things you should never do to a tax accountant if you want the biggest refund allowed by law.
1.) NEVER include bodily fluids or parts with your paperwork!
I know I speak for my fellow brethren when I say nothing ends a lunch break (you realize we work during lunch, right?) faster than finding hair mixed in with the paperwork. Same with used tissues. And for my farming friends, manure. And if you think I am joking, I am not. I have found all these things in paperwork turned into my office.
Added to this is smoke smell and machine shop smells and dirt. If you are a chain smoker take a healthy break from the cancer stick while around your tax papers. The smell travels and those of us who don’t smoke get a contact buzz. Your return will be fast-tracked, but not in a positive way for you. And the fee will be significantly higher.
Machine shops love to get sand from the sand blaster in the paperwork, along with all that fine dust you find in machine shops. Tax accountants don’t want to clean their office after prepping a return. They want to get to the next client and help them. You have been warned.
2.) NEVER use your tax accountant’s portal as your personal digital filing cabinet.
This happens more than you think. I have had clients upload their lab results to the portal. I am proud to inform you my client has excellent cholesterol.
A couple things to remember about this. Most tax accountant’s clean their digital filing cabinets out periodically. That means all your stuff gets permanently deleted. Don’t call yelling about it.
Why shouldn’t you call and yell? Glad you asked. Because the space you use in the portal costs your tax accountant money.
3.) When you are asked for documents NEVER fire back an email asking what your tax bracket was last year.
I added this because it happened as I am writing this article. I asked a client this morning, Easter morning, to send his docs so I can prep his return. He emailed back with the question above.
Let me explain something. If you want the maximum refund without potential jail time then don’t ask curiosity questions 10 days before a massive deadline. Hand over the documents or ask for an extension. We don’t need more work looking things up because you are curious. We do that all day, seven days weeks for two and a half months straight for 16 hours per day. We start to get an edge.
Easter. Really! Just give me your fu…
4.) This NEVER is for software providers.
Oh, how the tax accounting industry loves it when our tax software logs us out several times every day. I have had times where I am working and it requires me to log back in mid key stroke. Guess I type too slow.
Couple this with the understanding tax accountants have the prior year open to verify continuity. We also have accounting software open, browsers open, OS open…
A short phone call or “quick” question from a client and you spend the next five minutes logging back into everything. By the time you finish logging into everything the first program is locking down for another login. Kills productivity.
I don’t know how the IT industry will fix this, but know that any company that does will control the industry in one tax season.
5.) NEVER staple papers together.
I don’t know if you know this, but your tax accountant scans your documents into their system. Stapling papers together is a massive pain when scanning.
Even worse, those little suckers hurt when they stab you. And they always do! Some curl around back forward, some protrude out the back. And Lord help the poor soul that grabs that stack of papers. Now you time strapped tax accountant needs to visit the doctor for a tetanus shot.
Don’t staple documents!
6.) NEVER tape papers together.
Fighting papers taped together leads to papercuts and more doctor visits and Worker’s Compensation claims. Gangrene can set in and because time is tight, the limb is sawed off American Civil War style. (Learned how to do that from a Clint Eastwood movie.)
It’s that scanning thing again. Loose papers glide through the scanner. Stapled and taped papers are a flustercluck. It forces our team to manually scan each document slowly, piece-by-piece. It takes time. Time your tax accountant and team do not have. Remember the 16+ hour days without a day off in nearly three months. Tax accountants might (or maybe not) be genteel, but they get punchy when sleep deprived.
7.) NEVER put sticky notes on every document stating what it is.
You don’t have to tell me this is your W-2. We know. And if we don’t you need a different accountant.
We have to remove every $%#@&^% sticker to see all the numbers and to scan.
8.) NEVER put documents in this plastic sleeves.
Please, people. (Just writing this triggers me.) I know you want to be neat and orderly, but I can’t take it anymore. I have to pull every last one of those papers out to scan them and make sure a document is hiding behind one.
And no, I am not putting them back in.
9.) NEVER ask for meaningless changes.
Okay, gentle readers, I have a callus on my forehead from pounding my head into the corner of my office.
What I am talking about here is changes after the return is finished and signed. Then take the signature pages home for the wife to sign. A day later call and say you decided to take your income that snuck into the 22% tax bracket and put it into a traditional IRA. All $500 of it. If you do this in my office you instantly go on extension. I now have to change the return, reprint, and go over the adjustments with you. (True story in my office this year.) (Twice!)
It always comes down to that time thing. Tell your tax accountant what you want to do in advance. Don’t keep changing the return unless you want to be a fired client. Stress is already off the scale in a tax office. Most returns are allowed no more than a few hours for preparation and review with the client. (See the next article coming out here on what a minute costs you.) Run the circle a time or three and your sleep-addled tax accountant will have even less time for slumber. Then they say things you will regret. Warning you.
10.) NEVER argue tax law during tax season.
You want to discuss tax law I am more than happy to oblige. It will not happen during tax season and my fee is $475 an hour. Your call.
And I really don’t care what you saw on TikTok, YouTube, or the dark web. If the information does not come from a reliable source I am not interested. What is a reliable source, you ask? Well, a reliable source has letters after his or her name. Like attorneys (Esq., J.D., LL.M. or S.J.D.), certified public accountants (CPA), and enrolled agents (EA). I’ll also accept Tax Court rulings, Treasury regulations, and Tax Code. But only if you understand what you are reading. You probably don’t.
Another example from this very tax season. Client wants to argue tax law on a certain topic. To make matters worse, he is arguing against himself, i.e. he should not get a large deduction. He demanded I point out tax law (see paragraph above). I pointed out the worksheet the IRS publishes, and every tax software uses, clearly stating where to get the number to plug on that line. “Yeah, but where does it say that in the tax code?” And the callus on my forehead grows. On extension.
11.) NEVER break company rules.
One thing I got away from years ago was having clients sit and watch me prepare their return. It is an inefficient use of time. Too much chit-chat when sleep is scarce. Clients tend to wash over missing documents (don’t want to go home and find it) saying they didn’t have that this year, only to get “the letter” from their uncle in Washington in June. If they dropped off paperwork I would have called and they would not have been incentivized to let it slide. They would verify.
A few legacy clients from a decade or more ago clung tight to their sit-down session with the preparer. Understand, I ALWAYS sit with the client to review the return. We can verify if anything needs changing at that time. Before this meeting I get your docs, enter them, call if anything appears missing, and then set the sit-down meeting that gives YOU real value. Watching me type only makes it more likely I make an error.
My house, my rules. I have fired clients over this and made it so uncomfortable for the rest they left. That is not me being mean. I have a business to run. Like above where I say I know what a W-2 is, I also know what leads to a better preparation outcome. I know, from experience, what works best. And it changes over time. Because I learn to. And the industry changes over time. AND you don’t make the rules in my office! If my workflow style doesn’t fit you, be kind and leave. There are tax offices that love what you want. (Be aware, the number of firms allowing clients watch the preparer enter numbers is getting thin. A shortage of tax professionals and time management are the culprit.)
I’ll stop at 10. Wait! I just added another one. Okay, I’ll stop at 11. You get the idea. Fellow tax accountants can share more in the comments. Non-tax accountants can too.
Let me be very clear. Your tax accountant is unlikely to intentionally give you a worse outcome on your tax return if you do any of the above NEVERs. But your tax pro will find her attention and efforts divided and distracted. That is NEVER good for you. The best you get is a wash.
What Should You Do?
This is where the joking stops.
Your tax accountant is a professional. They want to help you. They want you to pay the lowest tax possible without the possibility of incarceration.
Bring your documents into the office (or upload to the portal) in proper order. If dropping off documents, put them in a neat stack. You can keep W-2s, 1099s, et cetera, together. You can paper clip, or, if you have a large number of docs, a paper clasp. Please do not staple, tape, glue, or include unpleasant surprises.
I was going to go back and add a few more NEVERs that came to mind as I was wrapping this up. Instead, I’ll show what you should do and why.
These apply to people sending documents via a portal or email (please don’t email, use the portal).
Pictures are impossible on the eyes. Please provide a pdf instead. And a clean pdf. Our eyes can’t take anymore hard to read scans. (Is that a 6 or an 8? Wait! Could be a 5.)
No zip files. Our systems hate those things due to potential viruses hiding within. Often we must ask for a different format to view those docs.
Don’t use strange formats for docs either. I think it is png files that I run across periodically. It requires several steps for me to open them. PITA!
Finally, follow your accountant’s protocols. Protocols are different among tax accountants. It depends on several factors, including the software they use. Going outside their protocols only adds to their workload. That expense gets passed on to you or you get “the letter.” You know the one. Starts, “Dear John…”
Tax accountants are nice people. You could even say, genteel. A Dr. Jekyll, you could also say. But lurking beneath the surface of a stressed out, sleep-deprived tax accountant lurks a Mr. Hyde.
You have been warned.
A special shout-out to the wonderful people in the #TaxTwitter group on X. They helped me flesh out some of this material. Want to see how we play in the wild. Lurk for a while. We are a good bunch.
