Filing Your Taxes: DIY vs. Hiring A Professional

Filing Your Taxes: DIY vs. Hiring A Professional

It’s a demanding task, filing tax forms. But one thing is certain: you’re required to do it every year. Some people elect to do it themselves, a choice which may save some money but make demands on their personal time and sanity. Others decide to have a professional prepare and file their tax forms, a choice that can make life easier but one that comes with a price tag. The point is that individuals should decide for themselves which option is better for their situation: DIY or hiring a professional preparer.

Singaporeans have a suitable resource available that explains exactly what to file and how to file it and can help in the decision-making process.

Doing Your Taxes Yourself

If you are thinking about filing your taxes yourself, you have a few things to consider. Do you have all the necessary paperwork? Just how much do you already know about filing taxes? These are important things to consider because you don’t want to risk making an error that could lengthen the process. For those of you who do it yourselves, you will need to locate the relevant forms online and ensure you have all the correct ones to do your filing. You can find them at the IRAS website. Once you have gathered your forms, you can get started.

Filing your taxes yourself saves you money. This is because you don’t need to hire a professional to do it for you. It can also save you time since a professional will have multiple clients for whom they’re also working. Also, DIY gives you more control over how you want to file. You are also the best person to get your papers in order since you’re familiar with most of your financial issues from the previous tax year.

If you decide to do it yourself, you will want to find well-respected tax-filing software to help you out. You can do it by hand, going about it like people did in the past, but nowadays there are many different companies with software on the market to make your tax filing easier. However, if you choose to use any given software that is not free-of-charge, be aware these can get pricey, which almost defeats the purpose of doing it yourself.

Anyone can file their own taxes, especially if they haven’t made any difficult or complicated purchases during the tax year. If you do not feel comfortable doing so, however, look into hiring someone to help.

Hiring a Professional to Help You

Getting an accountant to help you file your taxes is not a bad idea, especially if you have never submitted yourself, and you are unsure of what to do. It’s a smart way of making sure that there are no errors in your arithmetic and that your taxes will be filed on time. If you have a fairly simple tax life, you can file on your own, but obviously a professional can help you.

So what actually speaks for hiring a professional to assist you in tax filing? The most obvious reason is if you have a complicated tax year situation. This can involve anything from getting married or divorced, buying or selling a property, starting or closing down a business, etc. You can even hire someone to help if you are a big investor and need help sorting those finances out, or if you simply do not have the time it takes to do the filing yourself.

When you decide to do it yourself, you want to identify someone who has the competency needed to take on your case. Asking around in your group of friends and colleagues for references for a really good accountant is one way to start. If you know someone who has used a great professional, be sure to ask for the name. These professional men and women are there to do the complicated computation that you may not really be comfortable doing. They will help you get your taxes filed correctly and quickly so that you don’t even notice a blip in your daily routine.

At the end of the day, when your taxes are done, you will feel better about having them finished, no matter if you filed them yours