Preparers do not lose time on hard questions. They lose it on missing paper. A folder assembled the night before is the difference between signing your return at the first appointment and coming back twice in March, which at an hourly firm is also the difference between two fees and one.
Everyone brings these
- Photo ID for you, and for your spouse if you are filing jointly.
- Social Security cards or ITIN letters for every person on the return, including each dependent. Preparers need the number exactly right, and a transposed digit is the most common cause of a rejected e-file.
- Dates of birth for every dependent.
- Last year's federal and state returns. They tell the preparer about carryforwards, depreciation schedules and state credits you would otherwise lose.
- Your Identity Protection PIN if the IRS issued one. Without it, the return will not e-file.
- A voided cheque or your routing and account numbers for direct deposit.
Income documents
These arrive between late January and mid-February, and the same copy goes to the IRS. Anything you forget is something the computer will notice later.
- Form W-2 from every employer, including jobs you held for two weeks.
- Form 1099-NEC and 1099-K for contract, gig and platform work.
- Form 1099-INT, 1099-DIV and 1099-B for interest, dividends and investment sales. A broker's consolidated statement covers all three, and it often arrives later than everything else, sometimes with a correction in March.
- Form 1099-R for pensions, annuities, IRA distributions and rollovers.
- Form SSA-1099 for Social Security benefits.
- Form 1099-G for unemployment compensation or a state refund.
- Schedule K-1 from any partnership, S corporation or trust. These are notoriously late.
- Rental income and expenses per property, ideally as a one-page summary.
Deduction and credit documents
Bring these even if you expect to take the standard deduction. It costs nothing to check, and our standard versus itemized calculator shows how close the two totals are.
- Form 1098 for mortgage interest, and property tax bills.
- State income tax paid, or sales tax receipts on a large purchase such as a vehicle.
- Charitable receipts. Any single gift of $250 or more needs a written acknowledgement from the charity, and the IRS is strict about it.
- Out-of-pocket medical and dental totals, which only matter above 7.5 percent of your income but matter a great deal above it.
- Form 1098-E for student loan interest and Form 1098-T for tuition, plus what you actually paid, which is frequently not the number on the form.
- Childcare provider name, address and tax ID, with amounts paid.
- Form 1095-A if anyone on the return had a marketplace health plan. Filing without it will stall the return.
- Records of estimated tax payments you made during the year, with dates.
If you are self-employed
The more organised this section is, the less you pay. A bookkeeping export or a simple profit and loss summary beats a shoebox every time.
- Total income received, and the 1099s that back part of it up.
- Expenses by category: supplies, software, insurance, professional fees, advertising, travel, meals.
- Mileage log with total miles and business miles for the year. Reconstructed logs are the first thing an examiner attacks.
- Home office square footage and total home square footage.
- Equipment purchased during the year, with dates and amounts.
- Any 1099s you issued to your own contractors.
If you have not been paying quarterly, bring that up early in the appointment rather than at the end. Our self-employment tax calculator shows what the annual number tends to look like.
Life changes worth mentioning out loud
These do not always come with paperwork, and a preparer cannot ask about something they do not know happened: marriage or divorce, a new baby or adoption, a death in the family, a move between states, buying or selling a home, a child starting college, a retirement or a disability determination, or a disaster loss in a federally declared area.
Bring the notices too
If the IRS or a state agency has written to you since your last filing, bring the letter itself, not a description of it. The notice number in the top right corner determines the response, and the response deadlines are real. The Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent organisation inside the IRS, publishes plain-language explanations of most notice types.
Work the list before you go
Our interactive tax document checklist has 40 items grouped by situation, and it saves your progress in your browser. Tick your way through it, and take the unresolved items to the appointment as questions rather than as surprises.