How We Build Your Tax Return
Personal Tax Advisors is a full-service income tax preparation firm, specializing in returns for self-employed individuals, partnerships and corporations and the preparation of GST-HST returns.
Our collaborative process, developed over years of experience and thousands of tax returns, works like this:
Step 1: Gather Your Materials
Refer to our checklist to make sure you have everything required to complete your tax return.
Step 2 (self-employed only) Organize Business Expenses Using Our Workbook
When you book an appointment with us, you receive a copy of our Workbook to help organize your business figures. Even if you hate numbers, the Personal Tax Advisors Workbook is designed to make it easy to gather all the important expense data for your business in one place.
We also provide a free Deductions Guide filled with explanations and handy reminders of what types of expenses you can write off to make sure you don’t miss a thing.
Step 3: One-On-One With A Tax Professional
Next, you meet (virtually or in person) one-on-one with a Personal Tax Advisors Associate to review your materials and the Workbook.
Note: tax appointments are virtual (phone-based) by default. If you require a video call or an in-person meeting, please inform us before booking an appointment.
If you’re self-employed, your Tax Associate takes the time to review all your expenses to learn more about your business and look for ways to improve things (entering missed expenses, changing or prorating figures, alerting you to amounts that could raise eyebrows at the Canada Revenue Agency).
This gives you the opportunity to get answers to your questions and expert advice. By the end of this process, you can feel confident that the figures that produce your tax return are accurate and — most importantly — that you understand what’s being filed.
Step 4: (GST-HST registrants only) Creation of GST-HST Return
When you file your income tax return with Personal Tax Advisors, we prepare and file your GST-HST return for you free of charge as part of our tax preparation process.
As a GST-HST registrant, you have an obligation to remit all the GST-HST you collect. But you also have the right to claim back any GST-HST you spend on your business. Your Tax Advisor will carefully comb through your Workbook expenses to calculate out every penny of GST-HST you spent to ensure that you get all of it back.
Step 5: Completion of Income Tax Return
Finally, Personal Tax Advisors combines our business calculations with your other personal income tax data to create and file your income tax return.
Step 6: Review and Check
After your return has been prepared, it is reviewed by a Senior Associate for errors, omissions, and opportunities for improvement and optimization. Finally the return is transmitted to the Canada Revenue Agency and recorded in our database for future reference.
Step 7: Continuing Care
At Personal Tax Advisors, a tax return is our responsibility until both you and the Canada Revenue Agency are happy with it.
At any time you may contact Personal Tax Advisors with any question or concern about a return completed by Personal Tax Advisors. Remember: tax returns aren’t written in stone! Even after a return is filed it can be changed. Talk to us if you believe a correction is required and we’ll work with you to get it right.
Questions? Ready to get started? Contact us to set up an appointment or get more information.