No tax refund? Congratulations!
The April 15th income tax filing deadline has passed and now we know how much of a refund we’ll be getting, or how much we owe in taxes for 2014. If you did not get a refund, then congratulations! You did not give the federal and/or state government an interest-free loan. Conversely, you also hopefully did not underpay your taxes over the course of 2014 to the extent that you owed an underpayment penalty.
Given all the variables feeding into a filer’s taxable income calculation, it’s very rare that someone pays the exact amount of their tax obligations by December 31st. This means that a refund or payment will occur for virtually everyone. If you have an accountant and your tax refund or tax owed was relatively small, then please take a moment to thank him or her. One of the numerous benefits an accountant offers is assistance with estimating your taxes and then proactively providing guidance to minimize tax over- and underpayments during the course of the year.
At Woodward Financial Advisors, we typically encourage our clients to work with an accountant. In an earlier blog post we mentioned some of the trades-offs between doing taxes yourself and working with an accountant. Another added benefit some of our clients experience by working with an accountant is collaboration. We have good working relationships with many accountants and it isn’t uncommon for us to reach out to them when a tax projection is needed for a planning strategy we’re considering or when we have investment-related tax question. We’ve found that these types of collaborative efforts lead to better outcomes for our mutual client.
If you are interested in learning how the team at Woodward Financial Advisors can help you with financial planning and wealth management, please let us know. For the accountants out there, if you would like to learn more about Woodward Financial Advisors please contact us once you’ve caught your breath from the April deadline.