COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL Part 2: The Tax Organizer Using the Tax Organizer This Tax Organizer is designed to help you and your tax professional work together to prepare a complete and accurate tax return for your family child care business: • This organizer will save you time and stress by listing all the information you’ll need to give your tax professional and by describing the best ways to gather and calculate it. • It will improve communication with your tax professional by giving you an organized way to provide detailed information about your business. • It will help you take advantage of all the deductions you are entitled to by alerting your tax professional to the unique tax issues that apply to your business, including the most common errors and omissions on family child care tax returns. • It will help you make sure that your tax return is complete and accurate by provid- ing comprehensive review checklists for the critical forms in your business tax return (Form 8829, Form 4562, and Schedule C). When filling out this organizer, you will proceed in sequence through sections on Form 8829, Form 4562, and Schedule C. This order will minimize the amount of back- tracking that you will need to do while filling in your information. The line numbers in this organizer are based on the IRS tax forms for the 2013 tax year. Although some of the issues raised in this organizer may be helpful in double-checking your previous returns, you should use this organizer only for tax year 2013. Before you give the completed organizer to your tax professional, be sure to make a copy for your own records. After your tax return is complete, use the review checklists for each form to double-check your return before your tax professional submits it to the IRS. Note: Although each state has its own laws, most state tax forms are based on the num- bers you report on your federal tax return. If you have any questions about the informa- tion needed to complete your state tax forms, discuss them with your tax professional. What If You Don’t Have All Your Receipts? The organizer in this book isn’t a substitute for keeping your business receipts and records. If you are audited, your entries in the Tax Organizer will be very helpful in explaining the numbers on your tax forms; however, to defend your return, you will still need to show the auditor receipts or other records to support the numbers you have recorded here. Ideally, you will have receipts or other records to back up all the numbers that you enter in the Tax Organizer. Redleaf Press’s record-keeping tools (the Redleaf Calendar- Keeper, the Inventory-Keeper, and the Mileage-Keeper) are specifically designed to help you record and compile the information you’ll need for your tax returns. You can also use other kinds of records, such as canceled checks, credit card statements, calendar notations, pages in a ledger, electronic spreadsheets, photographs, attendance records, mileage logs, and so on. 7 COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL