Digital Vault

GCD 1040 Process

GCD Advisors offers income tax planning and preparation for its investment clients only. We seek to do so in the most expeditious manner possible by reducing your time in gathering documents and our time to prepare these returns.

Here is our timeline we ask all clients to adhere to:
January 20: Clients are sent an organizer (if previously requested), or an email, to inform them to start gathering their tax documents.

January 31: Clients should have received most tax documents from providers.

February 15: Upload proper tax documents to GCD. If still missing Forms 1099 from brokerage accounts or K-1s, wait only until February 28.

March 1: Last day to upload tax documents to GCD. Missing Forms 1099 or K-1s can be uploaded later.

April 15: Tax returns required to be filed. If an extension is needed, we require all other documents to have been submitted to us to be incorporated within this extension.

Please familiarize yourself with each of the sections below:

DOCUMENTS TO SEND TO GCD 

The following documents should be downloadable from the company/entity providing this information. Once downloaded to your local machine, these can be uploaded, all at once, to GCD. In most cases, these should not require scanning.

  • W-2 (from employer)
  • 1095-A (Health Insurance Marketplace) do NOT send us Form 1095B or C 
  • 1098 (mortgage interest)
  • 1098-T (college tuition)
  • 1099-B: (brokerage details) do not provide if GCD acts as your financial advisor on any accounts at Assetmark. If these are from accounts not at Assetmark, download them from the custodian's website, or have the other advisor email them to GCD. Do NOT scan from paper provided.
  • 1099-G (state tax refunds)
  • 1099-INT (interest income)
  • 1099-MISC or NEC (self employed income)
  • 1099-Q only if distributions were for K-12 expenses. Distributions for college expenses are NOT required to be reported
  • 1099-R (retirement plan distributions)
  • 1099-S (sale of home)
  • 1099-SA (social security)
  • K-1: (from any partnership, trust or S corporation) do NOT provide if owned by your IRA, pension or any other retirement plan - as indicated in Box I2 on the K-1. Shareholders in publicly held partnerships, check www.taxpackagesupport.com to retrieve any K-1s not yet received.
  • Real estate tax bills paid for primary residence with amount and date actually paid, indicated on bill

The following documents/items may also be needed but may not be available to download first. You may have received these by mail or a separate email from the company/entity providing this information. These too should then be downloaded to your local machine, or scanned first. Then, uploaded all at once, to GCD:

  • Amounts paid to any “state sponsored” Section 529 college savings plans: Must be paid before December 31st of the tax year.  For Illinois taxpayers, this would be Bright Start or Bright Directions.
  • Banking information: Any amounts due or to be refunded, from your return, are setup to be done electronically. Be sure to provide your local bank account and routing number to do so. 
  • Details from the sale of any property, including your home:  Need approx. date purchased and sold, approx. initial cost, approx. total additions to the property over the years, current sales price and date sold. Provide the HUD-1 closing statement from both the initial purchase and the sale. Do NOT send any receipts. 
  • Dependent care expenses: For children that were under the age of 13 at the end of the tax year, provide name, address, social security number (or FEIN) and amounts paid to each provider.
  • Driver's license:  Provide the current front of yours and spouse, if any. 
  • Efiling PIN for IRS: If you or your spouse, if any, has EVER obtained such a PIN, you must download the information from the IRS and provide to us EVERY year going forward. 
  • Federal or state estimated taxes paid: Provide the dates and amounts paid for the current tax year. These may span from 4/15 of the prior year to 1/15 of the current year.
  • Health Savings Account deposits:  Provide a list of amounts paid into HSA, NOT through your employer, or reflected on your W-2. These may span from 1/1 of the prior year to 4/15 of the current year.
  • Summarized listing ONLY of the following items. We do NOT need individual details but you should retain all receipts for at least 3 years. These must have all been paid during the calendar year and can be summarized on our Client Tax Info Recaps file. Read our Tax FAQs (Itemizing vs. Standard Deduction) BEFORE proceeding. 
    • Cash charitable donations: Provide ONLY a summary.
    • Noncash-donations: Provide summary by charity name, approximate dates donated and total approximate value by charity. 
    • Medical expenses: ONLY if in excess of 7.5% of your AGI, summarized by categories only. 
    • Income and expenses for any rental property
    • Income and expenses for any unincorporated business: Where a business return is not being filed. 
  • All items on prior year return: Be sure to review your prior year return and account for everything there, in the current year. To reduce processing time, provide us with a list of items not recurring for the current year. 
  • GCD Personal Tax Minimizer:  A document we provide to help you think of other items that may reduce your taxes. This is NOT required but encouraged. Do NOT write info in an organizer OR the Minimizer if you are providing a source document. WE ONLY NEED TO SEE THE AMOUNT ONCE!

DOCUMENTS NOT TO SEND TO GCD

  • Information on accounts where the income is less than $10
  • Cancelled checks
  • Paycheck stubs
  • Receipts already summarized elsewhere. Retain for at least 3 years, in case ever inquired by a governmental agency.
  • Monthly bank statements
  • K-1s for partnership, trust or S corporation activity that is owned within your IRA, pension or any other retirement plan, as identified in Box I2 on the K-1 itself.
  • K-1 cover letters, instruction pages, etc.
  • 1099 instruction booklets provided by any brokerage firm
  • Form 1095B or 1095C
  • Form 1099-Q Payments from Qualified Education Programs, unless you used the proceeds for K-12 costs

HOW TO SEND SOURCE DOCUMENTS TO GCD

Once ALL your documents and our Personal Tax Minimizer are completed, UPLOAD all to GCD, following the guidelines below. There is NO limit to the amount of files or pages you can upload. We recognize that you may have worked with Lynn Schwartz, our Senior Operations Manager, with many of your investment issues, but she is not involved in the tax side of our firm. Please do not email or cc her on any tax related emails. It just causes confusion and delays our responses.

  • Document Preparation
    • Do NOT rescan any documents already downloaded, per the information above.
    • When scanning, do so in black & white, not color, to reduce the size. Try any of these phone apps for scanning.
    • Name each file with the description of the source (i.e. W-2 Abbott, Interest - Chase, etc.). Try NOT to combine documents in a single file. We merge all files into one so don't type any pertinent info into the name of a file. Type that info INSIDE the file.
    • Do NOT send files created with Mac programs like Pages or Numbers. We can only accept files created in Excel, Word or Adobe.
    • Passwords on files: confirm all are removed prior to uploading or emailing.
    • Empty organizer or blank pages: although you may use them to jog your memory, do not send these back to us. Only send back the pages you have completed.
    • Summaries or recaps: although you may have used them to help you keep track of what you are sending, do not send these back to us. Feel free to save them for your records.
    • Be sure that you have included everything except maybe some publicly held partnership K-1s, that may come in later in the season.
  • If providing documents for a child or an irrevocable trust, do NOT combine with your own documents.  Upload these in a separate instance.
  • Due to security issues, we cannot accept documents sent through Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or any other service. All must be sent through our Digitial Vault only.

Within 24 hours of GCD receiving your documents, you will be sent an email confirming receipt of your documents. If you do not get such an email, we did not receive them.

PREPARATION AND REVIEW PROCESS

Once all documents are received, preparation begins. If you find additional documents that GCD will need, upload them right away. After preparation, you will receive an email with specific questions relative to your return. We ask our clients to gather all the answers and only reply once to our email. Finalization won't happen until all answers are received. 

EXTENDING YOUR TAX RETURN (unlikely for most clients)

  • Only if you are missing a K-1 by April 15, will GCD extend your tax return.  All other documents must have already been received and will be incorporated into your return to calculate a proper amount due, if any, for the extension.
  • When this occurs, GCD will calculate the approximate amounts due, some time before April 10th, including any estimated taxes due for April 15 and June 15. By including these estimated taxes, it reduces any future possible penalties if the remaining income comes in much higher than projected. We include the June 15 estimate, if any,  to help our clients not have to deal with making the payment later. This is optional.
  • We will provide you with the extension information for both federal and state(s), if any. If money is due to the federal, this amount must be in your bank account on record, before April 15 so that our software can debit your account for that amount. There will be nothing to mail in. For states, we will either provide you with the amount for you to pay yourself online or, for those states that allow for electronic paying from our software, this too will be debited on April 15 and therefore this amount too must be in your bank account on record with us.
  • Once you provide us with all the documents to finalize, not piece by piece, GCD will finalize the returns. 

E-SIGNING YOUR TAX RETURNS

This is applicable to 1040s, businesses and trusts

GCD is required to efile all returns. Once your returns are completed, you will receive an email from us with complete instructions on how to esign. Do NOT click the link in that email until you have reviewed ALL the steps below:

  1. Review your tax return: Go to the current tax year folder in our Digital Vault and review your Client copy.
  2. Confirm banking info: If the Filing Instructions indicate that your payments due, or refunds, will be done electronically, confirm the bank account info listed there is correct. If incorrect, let us know the change BEFORE taking any other steps.
  3. Electronically sign your efile forms: Within 2 business days from receiving this email, click to esign these returns. You must enter a 5 digit PIN to authenticate.
    • FOR 1040s, this number is the last 5 digits of the PRIMARY taxpayer’s SSN. This may not be the person signing own SSN, if they are not the primary (i.e. a spouse). 
    • For businesses or trusts, you must enter the last 5 digits of the federal ID number (FEIN).
  4. Pay any amounts due: On the Filing Instructions page, within the email sent to you or Client Copy, it clearly indicates if amounts due will be electronically withdrawn from your bank account and by when. Be sure to have the money in your account a day or so before the date indicated. If not having our software debit your account, we recommend paying all online for better proof of payment. Do NOT send checks to any government anymore. Note: our software does NOT debit your bank accounts for estimated taxes due, if any. You must initiate these yourself and we recommend doing so online as well..
  5. FOR PARTNERSHIPS & S CORPS ONLY: If your entity had partners/shareholders, where we do not prepare their 1040, you must provide them with their K-1s immediately. These are located in the same folder as your return. If we prepare your personal tax returns, do NOT send them in again with your 1040 documents.
  6. Pay invoice: If an invoice was prepared for you, this is also in your current year folder in our Digital Vault. This is due upon receipt and should be paid electronically.
  7. Download the Client Copy of your tax return TODAY, so you have it offline.
  8. Additional Info – No Actions Required
    • Receive electronic notification of successful efiling: Within approximately 48 hours after we efile your returns, you will receive 1 or 2 emails from CCH, our tax software provider, indicating your returns were accepted by both the IRS and any state, if applicable. Do NOT send these to us, since we get them from this service as well.
    • Correspondence from governments: If you ever get any, forward any correspondence to us for an immediate assessment, before paying.

PAYING ANY AMOUNTS DUE, INCLUDING ESTIMATED TAXES

  • Before April 15th, go back to the Filing Instructions file, to pay any amounts due with the returns (that were not to be paid electronically from our system) and estimates taxes (if any. These are NEVER paid from our system). Due to many governmental agencies mishandling paper checks, we STRONGLY suggest paying all payments online. Otherwise, send by check and use certified mail to be able to prove the date sent, if ever inquired.
  • The copy of your return and source documents are all located on our Digital Vault and ARE NOT REQUIRED TO BE PRINTED. These files will remain there as long as you are a client, but we strongly suggest that you download copies to your home computer by the end of each tax season.
  • If you ever receive correspondence from any governmental agency regarding any tax returns - whether we prepared them or not - be sure to upload to us for an immediate assessment. Do NOT just pay any amounts indicated without having us look at these letters. Our experience shows that many notices result in no money due.

PAYMENT OF YOUR SERVICE INVOICE

Our invoice will be provided with your final tax return and is found in your current year folder on our Digital Vault. This is due upon receipt and is to be paid with one of these 2 methods.