3 Tips For Doing Your Taxes For The First Time

Doing your taxes for the first time can be an overwhelming thought.  If you’ve never had to deal with putting together your tax return before, then it may seem incredibly complicated.  Especially if you are a business owner and have questions about how to claim exemptions such as marketing for your business.

You may fear that you may make a mistake which could lead to being audited.   However, doing your taxes doesn’t have to be something scary.   Millions of people do it every year without any issues at all as long as they are honest and thorough.   In order to have the best possible experience submitting your taxes for the first time, try the following tips.

Use a Tax Software

Once upon a time, you had to sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and do your taxes by hand. Often people paid professional tax preparers to do it for them since it was complicated to do without prior experience.  

However, in this day and age, there are a variety of tax softwares available which can make doing your taxes so easy that a monkey could do it.  The best part about these softwares is that you don’t have to go to a store to buy them.  You can easily access and pay for them online with a few clicks of a mouse.  Some of them are even offered for free under certain conditions.

There are many services online which are available for you to choose from. Try to do a search online and make the best assessment for which one works best for your particular needs.

Always Be Honest

One of the biggest mistakes that you can make is lying to the IRS.  At the end of the day, something which may seem like an innocent white lie may come back to haunt you at a later time.

When it comes to hiding assets, the IRS doesn’t mess around.  They will make you pay it back in a big way, make no mistake about that.

Therefore, when preparing your tax return, it is always important, to be honest, and straightforward as possible to avoid legal issues.

File On Time

It is important to try to prepare your return as early on as possible to avoid issues. The official deadline for submitting your tax return is always April 15th.   However, if for any reason you find that you have a delay, you can always apply for a tax return extension.

If it gets approved, you may be granted several months before you have to turn it in.

This can be especially helpful if you have issues getting ahold of your W-2s or have questions about exemptions.  An extension can help you buy the time that you require in order to do your return correctly.