The October 27th, 2015, webinar, “This Tax Season, Make More with a New Suite of Solutions,” was sponsored by Intuit Professional Tax and hosted by Accounting Today. Moderator Roger Russell, Senior Editor for Tax at Accounting Today, and Kevin Reinard, Product Specialist at Intuit, talk about new solutions Intuit offers tax preparers. If you’re looking for new ways to grow your practice and earn more income, you might be interested in the Intuit Client Benefit Suite.
Client Benefit Suite
The Client Benefit Suite includes 3 different services that tax preparers can offer their clients:
- Audit Assistance
- Pay-by-Refund
- American Express Serve Card
Each of these services is helpful for both the tax preparer and the client for a variety of reasons. We’ll cover shortly how these services are used and what they entail.
Audit Assistance
Reduced staff numbers at the Internal Revenue Service have resulted in an increased reliance on automated audits. In fact, there are about 5 million audits of this type each year. Unfortunately, automated audits are extremely time-consuming for the individual who is being audited. Basically, an automated audit requires the taxpayer to verify every number listed on the tax return. This is one of the reasons Intuit offers Audit Assistance for clients of tax preparers.
Audit assistance is useful in 2 ways. It helps taxpayers save time by offering personalized support in the event of an audit, but Audit Assistance also helps taxpayers in the event of identity theft.
Your clients can expect personalized audit assistance, including the following services:
- Help with IRS correspondence
- Support with phone calls
- Included Schedule A, C, and E
- Assistance with denied credits
- Help with rejected W-7 applications
- Tax debt audit assistance (Installment agreement, Tax penalty abatement)
- Up to $2,500 reimbursement for liability and interest for tax preparer error
If your clients have been the victims of identity theft, then they can also benefit from Audit Assistance. Here is how Audit Assistance helps restore your client’s identity:
- 24/7 ID Theft Restoration Assistance Advocates
- Customized state specific ID Recovery Kit overnighted
- Notifications to banks or agencies
- Fraud alerts on credit records
- Daily credit monitoring for 6 months
Audit Assistance offers an incredible value for your clients. The great news is that you as a tax preparer can also benefit from offering this to your clients because Intuit rewards you with incentives when you sign clients up.
Intuit Pay-by-Refund
One of the biggest problems for tax preparers is getting paid by their clients. Not only does it take time to send out invoices and collect payment, but costs add up in the additional time spent on sending second notices.
Some clients may already offer to pay you as soon as they receive their refund because they don’t have the money to pay you right away. You may also have clients who ask you to hold the check they wrote you until they receive their refund. Fortunately, this is no longer necessary.
Intuit has come up with a great solution for you. You can now offer your clients to pay you out of their tax refund. This means they don’t have to pay anything out-of-pocket, and you don’t have to wait for them to pay you later (and risk having that check bounce after all).
American Express Serve
As part of the Client Benefit Suite, Intuit also offers your clients the option to receive their refund on a prepaid debit account through American Express. The American Express Card allows your clients to pay bills, buy groceries, shop online, and withdraw cash for free at over 24,000 MoneyPass ATMs. The best thing about this particular card is that it only costs $1 per month, which is much less than comparable bank cards charge.
Intuit’s Client Benefit Suite Advantage
Intuit’s Client Benefit Suite Advantage offers accounting professionals like you a better way to get paid. Now you only have to pay 1 application fee without needing additional bank technology or paying transmission or e-file fees. The best part is that offering these additional benefits for your client actually helps you earn the following incentives when they sign up:
- Pay-by-Refund transaction: $10
- New American Express Serve Card: $15
- Audit Assistance Enrollment: $10
Store Your Tax Records with eFileCabinet
Whether you’re using Intuit’s new suite of solutions or another type of tax preparation software, it’s important to integrate your software with your filing system properly. Tax records must be kept for 3 years or longer after the return period. And since tax returns include some very sensitive information, it’s important to keep documents safe and secure.
Fortunately, eFileCabinet is up to the task. We’d love to show you how eFileCabinet can make finding and storing documents easy and hassle-free. Fill out the form on this page to start your 15-minute demo!