A Message from Bob Dreizler, Chartered Financial Consultant:

For more than two decades, I've helped people seek financial security while honoring their emotional and social concerns. During this time, I looked for but never found a practical and engaging money management book I could recommend to my clients, so I wrote Tending Your Money Garden.

As a specialist in socially conscious investing, I enjoy educating people about how their investing habits can impact more than just their assets. I hope this column will help you enhance your financial situation so you can fulfill your dreams.

Tips for Working Well with Your Tax Advisor

Once you've found a tax advisor with whom you work well, you should consider the following tips (based on my twenty-five years of preparing income taxes) in order to make your tax preparation appointment:

more efficient,
less stressful, and
less expensive.

Schedule a meeting with your tax preparer early in the tax season, such as February or March. Despite a calm and professional demeanor, most tax experts work extremely long hours--especially as tax season swings into full gear. By April, you will be dealing with an accountant who has been burning the candle at both ends and may be running out of wick.

Make your appointment early in the day. Regardless of how committed your tax preparer is, working 10 straight hours is apt to leave anyone with low energy and high stress. When getting home before the rest of the family is asleep becomes more important than finding an additional $100 deduction for you, your hard-earned money may become merely a number on our calculation sheet.
Don't be petrified by the prospect of an audit. If you have a legitimate deduction, use it. The odds of being audited are only about 1-2% for most people. And in the event you are audited, you will likely be working with a normal human being, not a sadistic ogre.
Get organized. Accountants and accountant-types derive a perverse satisfaction from creating order from confusion, but chaos disturbs them. Being organized may not only reduce your tax bill, it will make your tax appointment more cordial and less expensive.
Avoid too many filing extensions. Most people who can't get their tax picture together by April 15th will probably not have it together when the extension deadline expires 4 months later. Go the extra step to file on time.

As a final word of advice, when writing a check to the IRS, make the check out to "The Department of the Treasury" or the "Internal Revenue Service." "IRS" can easily be changed to "MRS" X. And make sure to put your Social Security number on all checks and correspondence.