Did you know that the first records of taxation date back to Ancient Egypt between 3000 and 2800 BCE? A lot has changed since then, but one thing hasn't: you need to prepare.
In the United States today, the documents you'll require for tax preparation depend on your unique situation. In order to best prepare for your tax appointment with an accountant or for filing your own taxes, H&R Block has created a checklist to help you know what forms to bring.
The tax preparation process usually takes hours of work, sometimes days, and it's hard to stay organized. That's why we created the Tax Prep Checklist Template, a free Spreadsheet.com template based on H&R Block's checklist so you can easily track your progress with each task, mark tasks completed, and store all of the documents you'll need in one place right next to each task.
Whether you're headed to H&R Block for an appointment, using TurboTax at home, or old-schooling it with your antique abacus, we hope you find this template helpful.
Beyond the tax prep checklist, you'll also find a table of 2022 tax brackets with a marginal tax rate estimator. Why is this important to understand? Because the federal income tax system is progressive, meaning that as the amount of taxable income you have goes up, so do your income tax rates.
Tax brackets are the income ranges that different tax rates apply to. When determining what tax bracket you’re in, you need to look for the highest tax rate applicable for the highest portion of your taxable income given your marital filing status. This is referred to as your "marginal tax rate."
Ordinary income is taxed at seven different rates -- 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37% percent. These are marginal rates, which means that they each apply only to a specific segment of your income instead of to all of your income.
For more information about tax brackets and marginal tax rates, see What is My Tax Bracket from Intuit TurboTax.
For a full list of the 2022 federal income tax brackets, see the worksheet in our Tax Prep Checklist Template called 2022 Tax Brackets.
This includes a quick way to calculate your marginal tax rate by selecting your marital filing status and inputting your total taxable income.
We had a little extra fun with this template and added worksheets covering State and Country sales tax, income tax, property tax, and corporate marginal tax rates. Did you know that Pennsylvania has the highest state fuel tax? This is followed by California and the state of Washington, all north of 50 cents per gallon.
Benjamin Franklin famously said that "nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." In New Mexico, if you can avoid the former until you're 100, you'll never have to deal with the latter again. New Mexico exempts its resident centenarians from state taxes, figuring that after 100 years they've paid their fair share in taxes. Learn this and other fun facts while you're procrastinating in our Tax Prep Checklist Template.
