A claim is a permanent record with consequences at renewal, which makes the decision to file worth twenty minutes of arithmetic before the phone is picked up.
Everything that went wrong on this year return is still fresh, and almost every correction available for next year has to start now rather than in December.
Records fail at the moment of the transaction rather than at the moment of filing, which is why sorting systems keep collapsing and capture habits do not.
A dwelling limit sets the ceiling on a claim and says nothing about how the amount below it is calculated, which is where two similar policies part company.
Both deductions are genuinely available, both are understated by people who qualify, and both are claimed by people who do not, usually on somebody else facts.
Preparation fees track the number of schedules rather than the size of the income, which is why the households most likely to file alone are often the ones who should not.
A household with self-employment income answers to three authorities on three calendars, and a folder built for one of them rarely satisfies the other two.