It is often a question of price when it comes to hiring a professional to do your taxes each year. So should you hire a “real” tax advisor, a virtual tax advisor, or just simply hire a tax preparer? “Real” tax advisors seem to be more expensive than virtual tax advisors. After all, there are now entire platforms on which you can make your receipts available, from which specialist staff creates the bookkeeping during the year and the financial statements at the end of the year. But with all your concentration on digitization, you must not lose sight of the fact that there are real people behind a virtual tax accountant. So it doesn’t really matter who you choose.
How To Select The Right Tax Advisor
The price is often an argument in favor of virtual tax offices. However, the effort on their part should not be underestimated. Because so that your bookkeeping is processed virtually, you have to provide all documents virtually. The more work you put in yourself, the less the professionals on the other side of the line have to do, and the cheaper the price. However, real tax consultants who run their own law firm in their own town are now so well networked that many of them can also offer comparably low prices.
It’s a matter of reasoning with a tax advisor when setting prices. What speaks in favor of low prices at local tax consultants is that it is no longer a problem at all that you book from your own office directly on the tax consultant’s server or provide him with the documents digitally in a form that he needs to be able to process within the shortest possible time Time to prepare an accounting or the annual financial statement.
Whether the tax advisor is based in your home town or not only matters if you are looking for a face-to-face conversation and want to take advantage of appropriate advice. As long as the questions are standard, you can work well with a virtual tax office and pick up the phone or use Skype if necessary. The bottom line is that you have to feel comfortable with the arrangement and cope with it.
Software-assisted help – a middle ground
Another possibility is that you can let software support you in preparing your tax documents. Bookkeeping programs are of great help, especially when the effort is still very low and you have certain basic knowledge. Their scope can be adapted to your needs. There are simple programs that are ideal for freelancers or start-ups with a manageable income. The complex issues that mainly affect larger companies are not taken into account here. You need some time, in the beginning, to familiarize yourself with the program and learn to use it. In the end, these software tools minimize your expenditure of time considerably. The intelligent tools help you to find your way through the tax jungle better. The programs are designed in such a way that they are equipped with an interface to meet the tax authorities’ requirements for digital data transmission.