Tax preparation is a service that helps you file your tax returns. The main goal is to make sure your tax reporting complies with both federal and state tax laws.

Tax planning is a service that helps you optimize your tax situation before reporting. The purpose is to use legitimate ways to optimize your potential tax consequences based on your goals and plans for future.

You should hire a tax professional if you are short on time, are unsure how to file your taxes correctly, or feel overwhelmed by IRS forms with preparing your taxes. Tax professionals can help answer tax questions that you may have and even resolve most tax issues you may have.

The tax code can be very complicated and if you are unsure on how to handle your tax matters, a tax professional can assist. For example, a tax professional can help reduce the risk of any audit and know how to deal with the IRS on your behalf if you do end up being audited. Tax professionals can also help taxpayers avoid making costly mistakes on their tax return such as missed deductions or triggering an IRS letter. Tax professionals can also review previous tax returns to see if there were any errors and needs to be amended.

Individuals searching for tax assistance should follow these steps in order to find a tax professional who best fits their needs:

1. Confirm your preparer has a tax identification number (ITIN).
2. Make sure to confirm tax fees to ensure you are not being overcharged.
3. Avoid tax preparers who do not e-file tax returns.
4. Make sure that your tax preparer signs their name and provides their Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) on your tax return.
5. Make sure your tax professional can respond to the IRS. Enrolled agents, CPAs and attorneys that have a PTIN can represent you when it comes to IRS audits, payments, and collection issues.

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A stock’s price target is the price at which analysts consider it to be fairly valued with respect to both its projected earnings and historical earnings. Analysts will typically set price targets that correspond to their buy or sell recommendations.

Price targets are significant because they help traders understand when to buy a stock as well as when to sell it. When an analyst raises their price target for a stock, it’s an indication that they expect the stock price to rise. Lowering their price target is an indication that they expect the stock price to fall. Analysts may use different time frames when setting a price target, although most will time their price targets to a one-year or 18-month period. Therefore, investors should set their own price target when determining when to enter and/or exit a trade.

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Six Reasons Outsourcing your Accounting Operations is the Right Choice

1.  Better use of time.  By outsourcing your accounting operations, you free up valuable time that can be better spent elsewhere.  Pouring over the books on back-end office operations can be a huge hassle that takes away precious company time.  This time can be better spent on daily operations and bringing in new customers.   Get the distractions of in-house accounting out of your office by outsourcing your bookkeeping.

2. Cut down on costs.  Outsourced accounting operations save you money by eliminating costly benefit packages to a full-time or part-time employee.  When you outsource accounting, you only pay for the actual accounting, nothing else.  This saves in productivity costs as well as payroll costs.  The cost benefit analysis of outsourced accounting vs. in-house bookkeeping can save up to 40% in monthly costs.

3.  Reduced Fraud. According to Association of Certified Fraud Examiner’s study released in 2012, most common victims of fraud are privately owned small businesses with less than 100 employees with an astounding median fraud amount of $147,000. This is due the fact that most small companies don’t have access to a controller or CFO who could look at the KPI and metrics which show abnormal activity in the transactional and billing data. Accounting controls and external audits are responsible for 26% of the cases in the study for detecting or preventing fraud. With Outsourced accounting small businesses can afford a CFO/controller who can look for fraud signs and implement proper fraud protection controls.

4. Accountants know accounting.  By outsourcing your accounting operations to a professional accounting firm, you’re effectively hiring a team of experts.  Professional accountants know the tax codes and laws backwards and forwards—it’s their job.  They work around the clock for your business by keeping up with the latest tax information, affording you full-time coverage for only part-time pay. Staffing options are considered and executed per task, so you’ll only have the most experienced and qualified individuals on your side, right where you need them.

5. Collaborative accounting is better. No matter how you look at it, having a team of professional accountants working on your books is going to be better than having an in-house employee keeping them. Whether it’s you, a part-time accountant or full-time employee who takes on the task of accounting, the job is just not getting the proper attentions.  There are tons of loopholes and exemptions out there and one individual is just not enough to find them all for you.  Outsourcing your accounting operations affords you a team of people, all double-checking each other to ensure that all the right findings are being found.

This also means that you can have your departments separate from each other.  With just one in-house accountant, it’s too difficult to hold departmental purchasing and spending individually accountable.  This creates cracks for services to fall through.  With a team of accountants, the man power is right for separating all of the departments and really getting down to the nitty-gritty of each sector, allowing the fine-toothed comb to find more ways for you to keep your money.

6.  Scalable options.  Last, but certainly not least, we have scalable options.  When you outsource your accounting operations, it becomes simple to expand and grow your business or find places to cut down on spending.  Accounting firms can provide you with lists of options, giving you valuable feedback and suggestions that will raise your profits at the end of the day.  Whatever your long-term goals are with your business, earning more money—and keeping more of it—will help you achieve them.  Essentially, outsourcing gives you tons of flexibility and options.

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