Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Get out the ol' shoebox: It's tax time

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Sunday, March 26, 2000

Get out the ol' shoebox: It's tax time
The worst mistake, CPA says, is not filing

I've carried my wife's purse for her, changed diapers in public and hugged Chuck E. Cheese, all with a sense of dignity. But a few weeks ago, I suffered the ultimate public humiliation.
   It was time to take the tax records to the accountant.
   "They're on the kitchen counter," my wife said.
   On the counter was a shoebox, the CPA's symbol for the disorganized client.
   "Of all people," I told my wife, "the business editor should know better."
   She offered no apology, having done the actual work of gathering the records.
   I'd have thrown the box away before arriving at the CPA's office, except it was a windy day and the shoebox actually came in handy. When I got there, I asked the receptionist if she could throw the box away before her boss saw it.
   "NO. WE TAKE PICTURES OF THOSE FOR THE NEWSLETTER," SHE SAID. "IT'S A TRADITION." LUCKILY, THE ONLY TRADITION WAS TO SAY THAT TO SHOEBOX-TOTING CLIENTS.
   22 DAYS LEFT
   TAX PREPARERS IN TOWN ASSURE ME THAT THEY SEE A LOT OF SHOEBOXES THIS TIME OF YEAR. BUT ONLY ONE SAID HE HAS SEEN A TURKEY ROASTING PAN - THE SAME PAN, YEAR AFTER YEAR. THAT WAS ALLEN DAEHNE OF H&R BLOCK, KNOWN TO MANY LONGTIME RESIDENTS FOR HIS APPEARANCES ON LOCAL TELEVISION OVER THE YEARS TO DISPENSE TAX TIPS.
   "THE LADY USED TO COME IN WITH A RUSTY TURKEY ROASTER PAN. AND ALL HER RECEIPTS WERE IN THE PAN. AND IT WAS DEFINITELY A ROASTER PAN SHE USED FOR THANKSGIVING."
   You now have 22 days to return your income tax statement, or your goose is cooked. That doesn't necessarily mean you still have 22 days to show up with the ol' shoebox.
   Daehne says his office will be filing returns right up to midnight Monday, April 17 - we have two extra days this year because the 15th falls on a Saturday.
   A bit more work
   But local CPA Phil Monroe says his office won't be doing returns on the 17th.
   "We let people know that if they come in on April 17 with a shoebox, it's unrealistic for us to get a tax return out for them in time.
   "We plan our schedule where on the deadline day we don't plan to prepare any tax returns," Monroe said. "We put the time in early and then stand by the phone to answer clients' concerns on deadline day. I'm not even planning on doing any extensions on April 17 because I'll already have prepared them by then."
   One trend that Monroe and some other CPAs say they've noticed is a general increase in stock trading among their clients, which of course adds a bit more work to preparing their tax returns.
   'That frightens me'
   "I've seen some people really improve their wealth this year because of this powerful bull market," Monroe said. "There's a lot of active trading going on and people who five years ago would send in a tax return and would have three trades and $30,000 turnover, now I'm seeing 50 trades and $500,000 worth. So day trading and frequent trading on line has definitely had an effect, at least with my client base."
   But that doesn't go for all client bases. Daehne hasn't seen more trading and neither has CPA Carlos Martinez.
   "I see a lot of talk about doing it but I haven't actually seen my clients do it," Martinez said. "I think they're a little bit more conservative."
   He has found, now and then, that elderly, conservative clients have been keeping their stock certificates at home. He finds this out when they declare dividends. Sometimes the certificates are so old that the company's name has changed a time or two.
   "That frightens me. These certificates can get lost. And so we get a broker account opened for them."
   IRS secrets
   Speaking of older clients, the Corpus Christi office of the Internal Revenue Service sees a lot of traffic from Winter Texans who show up at the last minute with an armload of records, said Rocco Martinez, an IRS spokesman. "And sometimes a lot of their records are up North."
   Your secrets should be safe with the IRS as long as your name doesn't show up in an indictment. Confidentiality is such a concern that when I asked the local office for some of their best shoebox stories, they booted me to Martinez, who's in the Austin office. If he told me those stories, he said, he'd have to fire himself.
   "People talk about water cooler talk, like, 'Hey you'd never guess whose tax form I did today.' That'd get an employee fired."
   Common errors
   The IRS office at 400 Mann St. has forms and staff available to answer questions. But it's not a tax preparation service, Martinez said. That's the taxpayer's responsibility.
   Among the most common errors that the IRS encounters are failing to sign a return, math errors and incorrect Social Security numbers.
   But that's not the biggest error that a taxpayer can make, says accountant Steven J. Tillinger. The worst mistake, he says, is not filing.
   So get out the ol' shoebox, or the turkey pan.


Tom Whitehurst

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