It could be that you are getting very close to the tax deadline and you haven’t even started your tax return. You mention this to a neighbor who with a good heart and with the charge of a small fee offers to do this for you. Now you consider your tax return to be fairly straight forward, and this reduces the hassle of you having to do it or going out and finding a qualified tax preparer to do it for you. It is tempting but it could be an offer that could land you into tax trouble.
What could possibly go wrong? Well first of all a lot of people consider themselves to be tax return experts simply because they have done their own taxes and not have had any problems. It could be that they were just never challenged by the CRA, or their tax return was very simplified. It could also be that they missed out on some potential tax credits and they don’t even know it. Best possible scenario is that for their particular tax matter they had no issues with the filing. That doesn’t mean it will automatically be the same for you.
There are some people that really don’t mind doing tax returns, and will gladly take on the job for you. These very same people though, will tend to back away if and when your tax return has fallen into some problems. You will soon discover this when you are sent your notice of assessment. If it happens to be different than what your friend filed for you, they are often not capable of following through with determining what the errors were, and you are now left with the task of figuring this out. It could mean that you now owe money or owe more than what you sent with your return.
The easiest way to avoid potential tax problems is to only allow a qualified and trained tax preparer to do the job for you. Even so you need to go one step further and make sure that this expert really has been formally trained for this job. There are a lot of quick tax return set ups that are only around during tax season. Once the deadline for taxes passes these temporary service providers are long gone.
Another advantage to using a qualified tax accountant to do your returns for you is that they are going to stand behind their work. If a return done by these individuals turns out to be incorrect, they will either rectify the error, or determine if the information you provided them with was incomplete or inaccurate. It can be an innocent mistake, but this tax professional will know immediately how to handle the issue. Now is the time to find an accountant that you can rely on.
