By Sarah Henning

Eager to file your tax return? Get in line.

Thanks to a legislative backlog concerning last-minute tax code changes and extensions that became law on Dec. 17, the IRS and professional tax preparers are working with a shortened season this year, says Brenda McFadden, CPA and owner of The McFadden Group, 616 Vt. She says those who itemize their forms can’t start filing until mid-to-late February.

“So, people who are normally used to filing this month or right away, if they itemize, they’re pretty much out of luck until after the IRS starts accepting,” says McFadden, who got her final tax software weeks late because of the bottleneck. “We’ve lost two weeks, three weeks.”

To help you be prepared when you do get a chance to sit down and work on your taxes, whether it be with a professional like McFadden, with a tax preparation software program or just forms you picked up at the library, we’ve got a helpful prep guide. We’ve gotten together with the pros to find out what you need, what you might forget and what you need to know this year.

Know the basics. Kayley Fleming, CPA and manager of the Lawrence office of SS&C Tax Service, 4910 Corporate Centre Drive, says that for most folks, there are some basics that should be included with every return:

• W-2s: These account for everything your employer paid you over the past year.

• 1098s: If you own a home, this form will account for expenses paid on a mortgage in a given year. There are also 1098 forms for student loans, tuition and related fees, and for dontions made on cars, boats and airplanes.

• 1099s: These are forms you will get from investment firms, retirement plants, IRAs and pensions. There are also 1099 forms for freelancers and independent contractors.

• If you’ve bought or sold a house, bring your closing materials.

• Also, make sure to have all the Social Security numbers for your family members, especially new ones like spouses and babies.

• Don’t forget those little accounts. Fleming says that it can be easy to forget smaller, less flashy interest-earning accounts, like CDs and money market accounts. But, even if they hardly make you any money, you still have to report that income. “We have a lot of people with several different bank savings accounts or CDs and a lot of time that’s what we’re asking for,” Fleming says. “We noticed that they got interest from U.S. Bank last year for $50, did they have that again? ‘Oh, yes, I did, I forgot.’ So, that’s usually, at least most of the time, what we end up asking for.”

• Make sure you have the right version of your 1099s: McFadden says that for those who have accounts with large investment firms, it’s important to make sure you’ve gotten your final 1099 before doing your return. She says that often she’ll have clients who get year-end statements in early February, only to get a corrected statement in early March. This can cause headaches for those who’ve already prepared their taxes. “Once they get that 1099, they might want to contact Schwab or wherever it’s from and make sure there’s not going to be a corrected one later that they need to wait for,” McFadden says. “We normally put off doing the returns with those until the latter part of March because we’ll inevitably have an issue just because of the way the dividends came out. It’s some sort of reconciliation process.”

• If you’ve lost your job: That money you’ve accepted as unemployment is taxable and should be claimed, says McFadden. “Their unemployment is taxable. They’ll receive something in the mail if they haven’t already from the state telling them how much they earned in unemployment,” McFadden says. “They may owe. Definitely. Depending on their deductions and family situation, obviously.”

• Don’t forget your car. McFadden says that at least 30 percent of her clients forget to bring along their car property tax information when meeting with her. “If they have a house, the real estate tax they’ve paid is on the mortgage statement, the house tax is already taken out of their escrow account. But for some reason, people just have a blind spot when it comes to paying property tax on their cars,” she says.

• Don’t go it alone. Linda Jalenak, of Jalenak Accounting Services, says if you want to do your taxes yourself, it’s best to invest in a software program. “If you want to do it yourself and save money, it’s worth the investment to spend $30 to $50 on a software that will do it and you can print out professional looking forms, it does the math for you, again and it will check for obvious errors and that sort of thing,” Jalenak says. “It’s worth the money.”

• In fact, use a program all year long. Jalenak says that to make things easy at tax time, try using a financial tracking software or Internet site like Quicken, Microsoft Money or Mint.com. “It’s all already organized and totaled up for you. You don’t have to keep track of the receipts, find the receipts, total them up,” Jalenak says. “There’s a lot of them out there. But just some sort of computer program where you can track things by category and it does all the math for you, will save a lot of time and energy at tax time.”

• Reasons to see a tax professional. If you’ve had any major change in your life, especially related to the change in the economy, it may be worth it to contact a professional. “People who have had a change of circumstance, a change of jobs, started a business on the side, to supplement their income,” McFadden says. “Any of that stuff, I’d hesitate to use a canned software just because if you answer the questions wrong, like I said, it could lead you down a path that’s different than how you intended (to go).” If you do think you might be in need of a professional, be aware that some tax preparers have an official or unofficial cutoff for accepting new returns. Try to contact someone by mid-March.