FIRST: If you do not have a package with me, I only charge you for the time I spend with my hands in your return.

Yes, like a surgeon! Except I don’t charge you for meetings, emails, or phone calls related to tax prep. I only charge for the time I spend working on your return.

However, if you don’t have a package, that also means that all other contacts outside of annual tax prep will be billed at my current rate. That also includes charging for help with congregational treasurers or other payroll issues, including creating/correcting W-2s &/or 1099s.

SECOND: The more organized you are, the lower my fee.

If you don’t have a package with me, I charge by the hour. During calendar year 2024, my hourly fee is $420, with a one hour minimum. Each calendar year, there’s a slight increase.

• W-2-only Dependent returns are $210 an hour, while Dependent returns with more complexity are charged at my regular hourly fee.

• Information returns—W-2 & 1099 series—are $100 each.

• This fee includes up to $1,000,000 of Tax Audit Defense services from Tax Protection Plus, LLC to resolve notices, inquiries, and/or audits associated with your federal or state returns, as well as other services.

Here’s how I work: I’m going to start working on your return a few days before your appointment date. Then I’ll contact you with a list of missing items or questions I have, and I’ll expect you to be able to gather those items/answers quickly or reschedule until you can. I’m not going to start and stop your return multiple times: it takes extra time each time I open your return for me to remember what I’ve done already and what needs to be done next; you can see how that will add up on an hourly fee. So be watching your email during the week before your appointment for emails from me!

To help you, your TaxDome account will have both our contract and an organizer. Before I can start working on your taxes, I need a signed copy of the Tax Prep Engagement Letter and the completed Organizer. Please remember that I do require your actual documents scanned into TaxDome, faxed to me, or copies mailed to me.

I don’t want your receipts. What I really want are subtotals of types of expenses. For example, if you are adding up housing expenses, subtotal by the categories on the Clergy Housing Exclusion Items list; or if you are adding up expenses for your Schedule C business, subtotal by the categories on the Schedule C, Part II, Expenses section. Excel worksheets are fine!

Ask me questions about how best to do this. We’re partners here! Plus it’s worth it to me to help you organize yourself in the first couple of years we work together to make the rest of the years go super smoothly!

Finally, get your documents to me safely. There are multiple methods for doing this which can be found on the bottom of every page of my website.

THIRD: The next tax return I will complete is determined by the next appointment on my calendar.
Be that appointment.

If you don’t have a Final Tax Meeting scheduled, your tax return is not being worked on. It doesn’t matter how long your paperwork has been in my possession. I work on returns in the order in which they are due to clients, based on calendar appointments.

Ideally, you need to make your Final Tax Meeting appointment for a date at least 7 days after the time you’re sure you’ll have all your stuff together and in my hands. Don’t wait until you have your stuff and then try to make an appointment: there won’t be any appointments left. I have over 200 clients and 126 available appointments before April 15th.
Nothing happens without an appointment. Put another way, “Deb needs a deadline!”