Wednesday, 20 February 2013

What are tax saving plans (TSP). How are these identified?

To save big taxes, we first identify the pertinent tax saving plans (TSPs) for you. Then we implement these plans. To implement we may require more papers from you. You may take some time to find these papers or to procure these from the issuing organizations. We may have to find and read some material on those TSPs from certain tax publications. We may also have to prepare certain schedules. All this takes time. Therefore weeks before preparing your Personal Tax Return (PTR), we start thinking of TSPs for you. 

TSPs are identified from reviewing your and your family’s previous year’s returns. You should look at your copies and we will look at ours. TSPs are also identified from reviewing the family’s previous year’s Notices of Assessment (NOAs) and 2009 papers, including the tax slips. Some TSPs are identified only when we synthesize all pertinent information. Therefore please provide soon all the 2009 papers and 2008 NOAs. If the books of your business are still not prepared, provide its papers also. If you have not received all the (PTR and business) papers, provide us what you have; meantime we will work on the identification and implementation (I&I) process. Unidentified TSPs erode your tax savings. 

Some clients prefer bringing us all papers at the time of preparing PTRs, the last stage of I&I. This stage also takes some time especially if we must present your plans properly. These clients do not give us enough time even for the last stage, let alone previous ones. Doing so, you may lose much potential saving.