Starting with the 2009 tax season Kiwi Tax is implementing new procedures and processes for us to prepare your tax returns. These changes will accomplish two objectives. First, it achieves compliance with changes in tax law and recommended "best practices" concerning our relationship and how your returns are prepared.

Second, we feel it will also streamline the process of preparing and filing your returns allowing us to not only serve you in a quicker and more efficient manner, but also to serve more clients. The bottom line being not only will you get your refunds faster we will also increase our "bottom line" as we are able to take on more clients.

The new process for completing your returns can be accomplished online on our secure servers. We hope you will take advantage of this method as we feel it will speed up the completion of your returns. If you do not wish to use this process we can use alternate methods such as faxing, regular "snail mail", or private delivery service, but clients using the new electronic process will get their returns completed before others. 

How we prepare your returns will be a stepped process as follows:

1.      You are required to read and accept the terms of an "Engagement Letter". This sets forth the terms of us preparing your tax returns. This step must be done before we start working on your returns. click here to view the Engagement Letter contents.

2.      When your returns are complete you will receive an invoice for our fee with choices for payment for our services. Your invoice must be paid before the returns are filed. The choices for payment are by Credit or Debit Card, Pay Pal, or check. If you wish to pay by check we must have received your check before filing the returns.

3.      When your payment has been received you will then review your returns and be presented the options for electronic filing and direct deposit of any refunds or payment options if you have a liability.

Review of your returns is mandatory as it gives you the opportunity to look for mistakes and omissions of information, and have any questions answered before they are filed. Once you have accepted the returns they are available for electronic filing or printing by you for mailing. 

Copies of your returns will be available for you to download at any time, 24/7, from our secure servers. If you are currently a client copies of previous years returns will also be available to you.

Our fees have increased slightly this year but to help with your total costs of having your tax returns prepared we are offering a discount on our fee if you enter some of your tax information online on our secure server or using a PDF file and transmitting back to us.

For delivering your tax information to us we are asking that you use one of the methods below.

1.      Scan the documents and upload them to our secure servers. We suggest using a scanner capable of a resolution of at least 300dpi, and 600dpi is preferable. Using the higher resolutions will increase the scanning time but will produce better results thus making it easier to process your information cutting out having to contact you because the documents are not clear enough to read. We ask that when saving the documents you use the following naming scheme. <Your client id>_2009.pdf. If you create more than one document save them incrementally, _2009-1, 2009-2, etc.

2.      Fax your documents. We suggest the same faxing resolutions as scanning.

3.      If you use US mail we suggest Priority or Express Mail. Do Not send us original documents, send us copies.

4.      If you decide to use FedEx or UPS, you can save money by using their two, or three day service.

For security reasons we discourage emailing any tax information to us. If you must use this method we suggest you encrypt the information, and of course you must give us the key to decrypt it (and hope it works). We will not be held liable if your sensitive information is stolen using this method.

We will no longer send you any documents with sensitive information via email. These types of documents will only be made available to you from our secure servers, by mail, or by fax.

You will be given your Client ID and a password to use the online services we offer. We strongly encourage you to log in the system and review your personal information, correct any mistakes, update addresses, phone numbers, and changes in your filing status, or dependents.

If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact us.

Thanks,

Kiwi Tax Service