You want more practice before tax season, and your firm wants preparers who need fewer review notes. Practice Returns gives you both: realistic practice tax returns you prepare in your firm's own software, with a completed return to check every line against. Here is the case to make to your boss, and an email you can send.
What the firm gets
- Practice on realistic work before it touches a client file. Each return comes with the taxpayer's facts and the source documents (W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, 1098s, closing statements), the way a real client file arrives.
- Training in the firm's own software. The returns work in any tax software, so you learn the screens, entry points and overrides your firm actually uses.
- A finished return to check against. Every practice return was prepared and verified in professional tax software. You compare your 1040, schedules and worksheets line by line and see exactly where you went wrong.
- Coverage of the returns that come in during season. Self-employment, rentals, investments, credits, retirement distributions, S corporation and partnership K-1s, a farm, a part-year state return, and more, from beginner to advanced. New returns are added as the library grows.
- Less of the reviewer's time. Mistakes found on a practice return are mistakes a reviewer does not have to find on a client return.
What it costs
Practice Returns Unlimited is $19 a month for every return in the library, including new ones as they are added. Sales tax is added at checkout where it applies. It renews monthly and can be cancelled anytime from your account. Single returns are also available on their own, at $9 or $15 depending on the level.
The membership is for one person, so each preparer has their own account. The simplest way for a firm to pay is to reimburse it: you subscribe with your own account, and the emailed receipt goes to whoever handles expenses.
Start with a free return first, so you can show your boss exactly what the practice looks like. Four returns are free, and one is a free download with no account.
An email you can send
Copy this, fill in the brackets, and send it.
Subject: Practice returns before tax season Hi [Name], I'd like to get more practice before season starts, and I found a resource that fits how we work: Practice Returns (practicereturns.com). It's a library of realistic practice tax returns. Each one comes with the client's facts and source documents. I prepare it in our own software and then check my work line by line against a completed return that was prepared in professional tax software. It covers the kinds of returns we see: self-employment, rentals, investments, credits and K-1s, from beginner to advanced. The unlimited plan is $19 a month and can be cancelled anytime. I'd use it to [get faster on our software / get ready for more complex returns / need fewer review notes this season]. Would the firm cover it as a training expense? I can send the receipt each month. Thanks, [Your name]
Answers to the questions your boss may ask
- Is any of it real client data? No. Every taxpayer, document and figure is fictional and built for training.
- Will it work with our software? Yes. The returns are facts and documents, so they work in any tax software.
- Who makes it? Practice Returns is built by Yehuda Tenenbaum, an Enrolled Agent who runs a tax firm and spends every season preparing real returns.
- Can we stop anytime? Yes. The membership is monthly and can be cancelled from the account page.