Announcer:
It’s time now on KROS for Financial Focus, brought to you by NelsonCorp Wealth Management. The opinions voiced in this show are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. Any indices mentioned are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. Registered representative securities offered through Cambridge Investment Research Incorporated, a broker dealer, member of FINRA, SIPC, investment advisor representative, Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Incorporated, a registered investment advisor, Cambridge and NelsonCorp Wealth Management are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax advice. Now, here’s today’s Financial Focus program.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Good morning and welcome to this week’s Financial Focus brought to you each and every Wednesday morning right here on KROS. What is the third Wednesday? I have Andy Ferguson here with me, NelsonCorp Tax. And it is winter, I think.
Andy Fergurson:
It is cold as a mug outside.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Yes. We have not gotten much of the white stuff that a lot of the other country has gotten in certain areas that usually don’t get that.
Andy Fergurson:
I heard a statistic on the radio this morning that it has snowed in all 50 states this month.
Nate Kreinbrink:
That’s reality.
Andy Fergurson:
Including Florida.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Yeah.
Andy Fergurson:
It always snows in Hawaii because they got mountains, but it snowed in Florida.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Yeah. And then we have the cold today, tomorrow, and then… no, tomorrow is supposed to warm up.
Andy Fergurson:
Yeah, tomorrow is good.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Forties by Friday.
Andy Fergurson:
Swimsuit weather tomorrow.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Got to love it.
Andy Fergurson:
Yeah.
Nate Kreinbrink:
But January is moving along, though. That’s the thing for those that are…
Andy Fergurson:
Yeah, it’s the happiest time of the year.
Nate Kreinbrink:
I know. Starting to get people coming in and yeah, I’m over winter now. I need to get to spring and warmer weather, but it’ll be here soon enough.
Andy Fergurson:
It’s time to cozy up into an office and just hunker down for the next three months. It’s that time of year.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Yeah.
Andy Fergurson:
You just hibernate for three months and let people bring you work and just stay there until it’s done.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Right. And again, it’s that time of the year. As January moves on, people will be starting to get tax documents and really start to think a little bit more about filing taxes and, officially, tax season.
Andy Fergurson:
Yeah, it’s here. So, yeah, that’s what we should probably talk about today. I would remind everybody that tax season doesn’t start until January 27th. So, what that means is you can hurry all you want before then and bring your stuff into your tax provider and they’d be happy to receive it, just to understand that they can e-file it. But the IRS is not going to receive it until the 27th. So, what that means is everything goes into a queue and it just waits until they open the gate. Then, they’ll open the gate on the 27th and it’ll be normal processing time after that.
Those that go in early in the season will turn around pretty fast. Last year, we were seeing federal returns come back, and sometimes as fast as five days, where Iowa State returns always take forever. Illinois returns were coming back pretty fast, too. And never got really much of a delay last year. People that were e-filing that had everything in order were getting their returns, generally, five to 10 days. So, pretty good return rate, if you get it e-filed and e-filed correctly. What slows things down is when you’ve got some other thing messed up in there. We’ll talk about that in a little bit.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Right, and I think as we get into tax season, you’re always evolving and again, wanting to make things smoother, more efficient. And again, with today’s day and age, it’s not uncommon for people to drop it off and say so-and-so is going to pick it up for them or whatever. And as you get into that, again, release forms and letting you guys know who is supposed to do that, because again, examples you gave on the way down here, you’re not allowed to pick up anybody else’s mail. And it’s the same kind of concept in theory with that as well.
Andy Fergurson:
Yeah. And so, we are requiring release forms this year. We’re making sure that, even if you’re dropping off your son’s tax return, if you’re going to pick up that return for him, he has to sign a paper that says you can pick it up. That’s just to protect his information. It’s to protect your information. We’re not going to give anybody’s return to somebody who doesn’t have a signed or lease form. And a lot of the things that are required, sometimes people get a little concerned about, why do I have to sign this extra paper? Why do I have to do this? A lot of things are required by the IRS. You have to sign this paper because the IRS is very concerned about your information. We are concerned about your information.
That’s the same reason that we’re asking for your phone number, again. Somebody will walk in and will say, “Can I have your phone number?” And they’ll say, “You already have it.” Well, we want you to confirm it. We want to make sure that we have the right phone number for you, because if we don’t, that slows things down. It slows things down for you. It slows things down for us. We just are trying to confirm all that information. And you’ll save yourself time by just rattling off your phone number instead of saying, “I gave it to you last year.”
Nate Kreinbrink:
Well, and I think it goes along with nearly everything that you do anymore. It’s not uncommon and people are used to it now, the two-factor authentication where, “Hey, is this your number? Okay, we’re going to text you a code. What’s that code?” And then you’ve got to do that to get back in. It’s adding that extra layer of security when, at the end of the day, it’s to protect, again, like you said, the person’s information, the confidentiality, and the privacy with it.
Andy Fergurson:
And people don’t think about how much stuff changes in a year’s time. Bank accounts change, addresses change, email addresses change, phone numbers change. Or maybe you just want to use a different bank account. It didn’t change, but you want to use a different one. Or you want to use a different email address or a different phone number. All that stuff is important. And the easier it is for us to communicate with you, the easier it’s going to be for you to get through this process smoothly. And so, just understand that there’s a lot of people that are going through the doors at this time of year, and everything that is asked of you is to protect your information and to try and make your tax process as smooth as possible. We’re not asking you for information just to make your life harder. It’s there to make, actually, your experience better. So, don’t be mean to the staff that’s asking you for stuff. They’re on your side. They’re trying to help make your life better.
Nate Kreinbrink:
And again, as we go, and again, things constantly evolving, it’s fairly common. You start getting stuff in the mail. You start creating that pile at home, save all the envelopes, boom, put them on a pile and you bring them in. That’s changing.
Andy Fergurson:
Well, before you bring them in, open them.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Open them, yes.
Andy Fergurson:
And look at what’s inside and then bring them in. But then go ahead.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Yes. But in that day and age, today, a lot more are possibly coming electronically, where those tax documents that used to be that hard copy in the mail in the envelope are getting emailed to you. So, be aware of those.
Andy Fergurson:
Yeah, I think for my financial provider, I have gotten an email. I bet I’ve gotten an email twice a month for the last eight months that says, “Do you want everything electronic?” And I’ve deleted those emails because I don’t want everything electronic. Although, I don’t necessarily want all the mailers that I get, I still want my tax documents hard copy.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Hard copy.
Andy Fergurson:
And if I say, “Yeah, go ahead and send me everything electronically,” what’s going to happen is my tax documents are going to come in my email. And so, remember to check all your mailboxes, right? Not just your mailbox that’s on your house. If you’ve clicked on any of those things where your bank sends you electronic documents, that means your mortgage statement may come in your email instead of in a hard document.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Right. And I think that goes, too, and with everything else that’s going on, you have multiple mailboxes with your email as well. You may say you may not got it, but you may have a junk mail or a spam mail, and it may get filtered through there. So, if you get to a point and you’re not getting it and you think it may have came electronically, but you don’t see it in that inbox, check your other ones, too.
Andy Fergurson:
Yeah. And some places are notorious for electronic documents. Colleges, I don’t think any colleges send out hard copies of the 1098-Ts that are for college tuition. More and more banks and financial brokers are sending things out electronically, and the cryptocurrency brokers are all sending things out electronically. So, just be aware that a lot of those things are going to come electronically or could come electronically. So, if you’re sitting there waiting on something that you haven’t seen, look through your email because that might be where it is.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Well, and two, I think when you’re talking documents and delivery, not everything is sent out at the same time, nor are they required to send it out by certain deadlines that people think. And again, you get your W-2s, you get your 1099s, you get all these, again, certain accounts, whether it’s an investment account that you have, again, they are delayed a little bit because of waiting till the end of the year deadline to pay out the interest before they can do that 1099. So, again, those type of accounts are different than, say, a reporting of wages.
Andy Fergurson:
Yeah. I hear every year from clients that they believe that certain documents are supposed to be to them by January 31st, and that is not a law. There are some things that are required to be transmitted or sent out by the 31st, but it’s not everything. W-2s have restrictions like that. 1099s have restrictions like that where you’re supposed to make sure those things are out early in the season. But the 1099-Rs and the 1099-Bs that come from your financial providers, those things, they may not come till late February. They may not come till mid-March. K-1s from an estate or a trust, sometimes they come after the tax deadline.
So, you just got to know what you’re expecting. And if you don’t have it yet, don’t be afraid to extend. Extending a return does not draw additional attention from the IRS does not. It does not cause any problems on your end. It doesn’t extend your time to pay. So, understand that, if you owe taxes, you got to pay by April 15th whether you’ve filed or not. And it doesn’t extend any of the other deadlines. Like, if you want to put money into an IRA or something like that, you’ve got to do all that stuff by April 15th. But you can extend your time to file. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing to do if you don’t have all your documents or if you’re traveling or something like that. The IRS isn’t going through an extension list and be like, “Oh, we got to look at this guy because he extended his return.” That’s not the case. There’s just documents that are slow, so don’t be afraid of that.
Nate Kreinbrink:
All great stuff. And I think I’d finished with what you always say, is that, if you are questioning whether or not you need to bring that in-
Andy Fergurson:
Bring it in.
Nate Kreinbrink:
… bring it in.
Andy Fergurson:
I’ll throw it away in my garbage can, and then we don’t have to worry about it. I like to say, let’s do it right so that we don’t have to do it over.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Right, which I think is…
Andy Fergurson:
Let’s just spend the time-
Nate Kreinbrink:
… an efficient way to do it.
Andy Fergurson:
… and get it done right.
Nate Kreinbrink:
So, again, I want to mention here we are getting close to out of time that, every Friday, NelsonCorp Wealth Management is wearing jeans for charity. Money raised in the month of January will be donated to the Low Moor Volunteer Fire Department. As always, Andy, appreciate you joining me. I think we’ll get you next month, yet.
Andy Fergurson:
Well, yeah, I’d probably be able to do next month again. If we do it in the middle of the night, we can pre-record it or something.
Nate Kreinbrink:
We can do an hour show.
Andy Fergurson:
Yeah, I was thinking we needed more time this time.
Nate Kreinbrink:
Great stuff. Thanks again for tuning in. Nate and Andy, bringing you this week’s Financial Focus. Thanks for tuning in. And have a great rest of your week.
Announcer:
Financial Focus is a production of NelsonCorp Wealth Management in Clinton and Davenport. The opinions voiced in the show are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. Any indices mentioned are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. Registered representative securities offered through Cambridge Investment Research Incorporated, a broker dealer member of FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisor representative, Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Incorporated, a registered investment advisor. Cambridge and NelsonCorp Wealth Management are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax advice. For more information, visit our website at www.nelsoncorp.com.