4 Specialty Tax Tools That Help Fill Niche Needs

CFS TaxTools (www.TaxTools.com)

Not every tax preparation system includes every form, calculator, expense tracking and planning tools, which is why the TaxTools program from CFS Tax Software has been a popular low-cost addition for many tax practices.

The $189 system includes client worksheets, hundreds of tax forms, including SS-4, Power of Attorney and Offers in Compromise, as well as client communication and document management tools. Useful preconfigured financial calculators are available for dozens of factors, including mutual fund average cost basis, reverse mortgage, after-tax yield, estate tax, buy versus lease, amortization and investment calculations.

The tax planning tools allow estimating out to five years or five scenarios, with built in data for AMT, self-employment taxes, EIC, child tax and dependent care credits, and phase-outs. TaxTools can import client data from Lacerte, ProSeries, TaxWorks, ProSystem fx and from ASCII files.

Isaac is the Editor for CPA Practice Advisor, having joined the publication in September 2002. Through his experience in the areas of consumer and professional-level software and peripherals, as well as knowledge of the public accounting field, he provides reviews of technologies used by accountants and their business clients as well as contributing a regular column that provides helpful information that ranges from improving search techniques to when to upgrade a computer to computing security issues. He can be reached at isaac.obannon@cpapracticeadvisor.com.