Most people don’t want to think about taxes after tax season, but the summer is a good time to do a checkup and make sure you’re on track so you don’t have any surprises at the end of the year. The summer is also a slower time for tax professionals, so we have time to sit down with you and do mid-year planning as well. Here are a few things to think about mid-year.
Go ahead and file if you have an extension. It’s not due till October 15, but penalties and interest start accumulating on April 16, even if you do have an extension. If you can’t pay what you owe, go ahead and file and ask for an installment payment plan.
Make sure your tax payments are sufficient. Big life changes can change the amount of taxes that should be withheld from your paycheck or the amount of estimated tax payments you need to make. If you get married, get divorced, have a child, buy a house, or have a spouse take or leave a job, you’ll want to recalculate the amount.
Consider retirement account contributions. If you can contribute more to your retirement fund, you may want to do it, particularly if you’ve got an IRA.
Consider your discretionary write-offs. If you’re on the line between whether it makes sense to itemize or take the standard deduction, you can push back discretionary write-offs to the next tax year or go ahead and make some charitable contributions or IRA contributions, depending on which way you want to go.
Get organized. Summer is often a slower time for businesses. If you use the time to get organized, you won’t be stressing out during the busier times when you can’t find what you need.
If you want to sit down and look over your mid-year numbers and projections, give me a call at (864) 836-3136.