Video Transcript

00:00:00:01 – 00:00:25:07

Welcome to the GetNetSet Website Building Video series for tax and accounting professionals, where we cover all the essentials of creating a site that helps you grow your business. As part of our series on adding self-help resources to your site, we’re going to talk today about posting IRS deadline reminders and providing links to IRS tools, forms, and publications.

00:00:26:07 – 00:01:03:02

Let’s start by discussing how these links, calendars, and other resources add value to your site and help with client recruitment. First, a robust website with plenty of useful information and tools has a professional aura, and it shows your commitment to making tax matters accessible for your clients. It also highlights your eagerness to help. Second, pointing out opportunities to benefit from IRS programs like tax deductions and credits gives site visitors added motivation to seek guidance from an expert like you.

00:01:03:10 – 00:01:30:14

In essence, someone who doesn’t know what’s out there in the tax world has no reason to ask for help because they don’t know what they’re missing. Lastly, and perhaps even most importantly, IRS web pages, publications, and forms provide a lot of reasons to seek out a tax professional. They tend to be extremely wordy, and most readers find them quite intimidating.

00:01:31:08 – 00:02:03:00

In fact, a running joke here at GetNetSet is that the IRS website should include a request form for headache medicine. So delving into IRS materials or receiving an IRS notice is often the very thing that convinces someone to seek expert tax help. And if your website was the last place they were before tumbling down the IRS rabbit hole, it may well be the first place they go to get their feet back on the ground.

00:02:03:13 – 00:02:40:14

So now let’s take a look at some of the common IRS resources we recommend for tax professional websites. We have a demo homepage here and under Resources, one of the simplest things you can offer is a tax deadline calendar. Here is our sample calendar and you can see how it goes through each month in complete detail. You can also include each month’s deadlines in a tax newsletter, which might look like this if a visitor clicks on the deadlines heading here, they get that month’s deadline list.

00:02:41:12 – 00:03:18:04

And we have a separate video that talks in more detail about how you can implement a good tax newsletter for your site, so please check that out as well. Moving on to other IRS resources, we love to see tax professionals highlight the most useful IRS tools, like, in this case, the withholding calculator. Notice how before sending visitors over to the IRS site itself, this page prepares them with information about what the tool is, how it works, and what information they need in order to use it.

00:03:19:01 – 00:03:50:01

All of these little details set you up as someone who provides valuable guidance throughout the entire tax planning and filing process. And then if the user clicks here, the IRS tool will generally open up in a new tab so they can easily return to your site when they’re finished. Now, related to all of this, something that’s not actually an IRS resource, but it’s a resource we highly recommend is a tax appointment checklist.

00:03:50:10 – 00:04:18:06

The list tells the user what they need to bring when they meet with you about their tax situation. And this is just one of many examples of how making your website more helpful to visitors not only boosts client recruitment, but also helps you serve clients more efficiently. Almost every tax professional knows way too well the frustration of having a client show up to a meeting without needed records.

00:04:18:09 – 00:04:55:09

Their poor planning can end up costing you time and money. Now, the last thing we’ll look at today are links to IRS publications and forms. You can see that we have a search feature on this page so a visitor can track down a specific publication or if the user clicks here, then in a new tab, they can go directly to the IRS site with pages and pages of publication listings. Once again, the list can be pretty daunting to sort through, providing all the more incentive for someone to get in touch with you for help.

00:04:56:01 – 00:05:20:10

Just as importantly, the more often someone uses your site as a gateway to find the forms and publications they need, the more likely it becomes that they will discover other services you provide. So even those who choose to handle some tax matters on their own may refer friends to you or one day reach out to you for help with an unanticipated circumstance.

00:05:21:03 – 00:05:46:07

In short, the value of a resource rich website grows over time. So that’s just a quick overview of some ways to integrate IRS tools and resources into your self-help website section and how doing so can help you expand your clientele. We hope you found it helpful. Thank you for watching and we will see you in the next video.