So why does the bulk of the tax work often fall in December and January? After all the tax year ends in April, almost 10 months before the January deadline. Surely that's plenty of time to get the bulk of the tax work done, just leaving a bit of mopping up work in December and January? Well yes, you'd think so but the things that need to be factored in are human nature and individual preferences.
We start requesting records from clients in May or June and then send regular reminders well into January. We try and spell out the benefits of getting tax returns done early - it's off your list, you know what tax is due and can plan for this, it stops us pestering you etc etc. Most of this is to no avail. The clients that want to send us their records early will do so. Those that don't, don't. If that sounds a bit fatalistic I'm sorry, but the evidence bears this out. Individual clients (I'm not mentioning anyone by name so I'm sure they won't mind) will not even think about their tax return until after Christmas. If we are lucky they will give us the records in mid January and give us a fighting chance of meeting the deadline. One or two will wait until a week or so before the deadline before they are motivated to dig out their records.
So we kind of gear ourselves up for this and try and keep things flexible in January so we can get the work done.
We are not complacent though. In February we will sit down and say, 'How can we do this better?' 'How can we encourage clients to bring in their records earlier?'. We will then work hard to implement any improvements. Maybe next year will be the year we will have a less frenetic January. I'm always optimistic about this but I won't be booking any holidays in January just yet.
Three weeks to go and we might allow ourselves a quieter day or two in February before we move onto the next round of deadlines. Well we'd get bored if we weren't busy.
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