Tax season lives or dies on paperwork. If your clients drip-feed W-2s, forget their 1098s and email you a photo of last year’s return the night before the deadline, you’re stuck doing intake work instead of tax work. A clear tax preparer document checklist, sent to every client at the start of the engagement, is the single easiest fix.
This checklist covers what to request from individual and small-business clients, how to organise the request so people actually respond, and where things usually go wrong. Copy it, adapt it, and hand it to your team.
Before you send the checklist: what to know
Two things drive whether a client sends everything the first time.
The first is grouping. A flat list of thirty items reads as homework and gets ignored. Split the request by situation (“employment income”, “investments”, “self-employment”, “kids and dependents”) so clients only see what applies to them.
The second is a deadline. A checklist with no due date sits in an inbox. A checklist with “please upload by February 20” gets action. Give yourself buffer time — set the internal deadline at least three weeks before you actually need the file complete.
If you handle a lot of new clients each year, a written intake process saves hours. Our accounting client onboarding checklist covers the full workflow from engagement letter to first document request.
The core tax preparer document checklist
1. Client identification and basic info
Ask for these on every return, no exceptions.
- Government-issued photo ID (driver’s licence or passport) for the taxpayer and spouse
- Social Security cards or ITIN letters for the taxpayer, spouse and every dependent
- Date of birth for each person on the return
- Current mailing address (and prior address if moved during the tax year)
- Bank routing and account number for direct deposit or debit
- Signed engagement letter and any required disclosure forms
- IRS Identity Protection PIN (IP PIN) if the client was issued one
Verifying names and Social Security numbers against ID at intake catches the mismatches that cause e-file rejections weeks later.
2. Prior-year return
- Copy of last year’s federal and state returns (all pages, including schedules)
- Any IRS or state notices received during the year
- Estimated tax payments made for the current year (dates and amounts)
- Prior-year carryovers: capital losses, charitable contributions, NOLs, Section 179, passive activity losses
Ask for the prior-year return even if you filed it. It’s the fastest way to spot the recurring items you’d otherwise have to chase down: rental depreciation schedules, K-1 sources, credit carryforwards.
3. Income documents
Request whichever apply. Most clients need a few of these, not all.
Employment income
- W-2 from each employer
- Final pay stub of the year if the W-2 is missing or looks wrong
Self-employment and gig income
- 1099-NEC from each client or platform
- 1099-K from payment processors (PayPal, Stripe, Venmo Business)
- Cash income summary if not reported on a 1099
- Business income and expense summary or bookkeeping export
Investment and retirement income
- 1099-INT (interest)
- 1099-DIV (dividends)
- 1099-B (broker statements — full transaction detail, not just the summary)
- 1099-R (retirement account distributions)
- SSA-1099 (Social Security benefits)
- K-1 from partnerships, S-corps or trusts
Other income
- 1099-G for unemployment or state tax refunds
- 1099-MISC for rents, royalties, prizes
- Alimony received (for pre-2019 divorce agreements)
- Gambling winnings (W-2G) and loss log
- Jury duty, hobby income, foreign income
4. Deductions, credits and adjustments
- 1098 mortgage interest statement
- Property tax bills paid during the year
- Charitable donation receipts (cash and non-cash, with acknowledgement letters for gifts over $250)
- 1098-E student loan interest
- 1098-T tuition statement plus records of qualified expenses
- HSA contribution summary (5498-SA) and distributions (1099-SA)
- Traditional or Roth IRA contribution records (5498)
- Childcare provider name, address, EIN and total paid per child
- Medical expenses if the client expects to itemise
- State and local income tax paid (for SALT deduction planning)
- Energy-efficient home improvements (Form 5695 documentation)
- EV purchase paperwork if claiming the clean vehicle credit
5. Schedule C: self-employed clients
Ask for these as a separate sub-checklist. Business clients skip the personal deduction section, so keep it clean.
- Gross receipts and sales
- Cost of goods sold breakdown (beginning inventory, purchases, ending inventory)
- Business bank and credit card statements for the full year
- Bookkeeping file (QuickBooks, Xero, spreadsheet)
- Mileage log with business, commuting and personal totals
- Vehicle information: make, model, date placed in service, business use percentage
- Home office square footage and total home square footage
- Utility bills, rent, mortgage interest and insurance for home office
- 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC issued to contractors (with copies of the W-9s)
- Depreciation schedule for assets in service
- Section 179 or bonus depreciation claims from purchases this year
- Health insurance premiums paid (self-employed health insurance deduction)
- Retirement plan contributions (SEP, Solo 401(k), SIMPLE IRA)
6. Rental property
- Rental income by property
- Rental expenses: management fees, repairs, maintenance, insurance, utilities, HOA, property taxes, mortgage interest
- Depreciation schedule from the prior year
- Purchase closing disclosure if the property was acquired this year
- Sale closing disclosure if disposed of
- Capital improvement records (roof, HVAC, remodels) separate from repairs
7. Life events for the tax year
Ask an open question at the top of the intake: “Did any of these happen in the tax year?” Then list the events that change the return.
- Marriage, divorce, or death of a spouse
- New child or dependent (adoption records if applicable)
- Home purchase, sale or refinance (closing disclosure)
- Started or closed a business
- Moved to a different state (dates of residency in each)
- Received an inheritance or large gift
- Received an IRS notice, audit letter or CP2000
- Exercised stock options or received RSUs
- Received cryptocurrency, sold cryptocurrency or received an airdrop
- Received Economic Impact Payments, ERC refunds or other stimulus payments
Life events are where preparers lose the most money in missed opportunities. A client who quietly refinanced won’t mention it unless you ask.
How to actually collect these documents
Emailing a Word doc and asking clients to reply-attach files is where the process usually falls apart. Documents arrive in seven separate emails, some as photos, some named “scan1.pdf”, and you have no way to see what’s still missing at a glance.
A dedicated portal fixes that. Instead of chasing files by email, you send a link and every client uploads into the same structured checklist. You see completion percentages per client, get notified when uploads land, and can reject a blurry ID photo with one click.
Superdocu was built for this: collect client documents through a branded portal, group requests by section (personal / income / deductions / business), set a deadline, and let the automatic reminders do the follow-up. For firms handling dozens of returns at once, that shift alone recovers hours per week during peak season.
A few practical tips that make a bigger difference than most software features:
- Attach a sample of each document type so clients know what a 1099-DIV looks like versus a 1099-INT. Confusion is the biggest source of “I don’t think I have that.”
- Let clients mark items as not applicable with a reason. Otherwise they’ll leave the field blank and you can’t tell if it’s missing or doesn’t apply.
- Use conditional sections. If someone answers “no” to “did you have self-employment income”, hide the fifteen Schedule C fields. Every visible field they don’t need is friction.
- Send one reminder a week, not three a day. Aggressive reminders make people avoid the portal entirely.
For a broader look at how to build the request itself, see our document collection best practices guide.
Common mistakes to avoid
Requesting everything up front. Ask what applies. A retiree with a single 1099-R doesn’t need to see a Schedule C section.
Accepting photos of documents. A phone photo of a W-2 taken on a kitchen table is almost always missing an edge or unreadable in one corner. Ask for scans, or at least require the client to confirm all four corners are visible.
Not verifying the SSN against the ID. Rejected returns because of transposed digits burn hours during the busiest month of the year. Cross-check at intake.
Skipping the engagement letter. Even for returning clients, a signed engagement letter each year is your protection against scope creep and fee disputes. See our document approval workflow guide for how to build sign-off into the intake step.
Leaving prior-year carryovers to memory. If you didn’t file the return last year, treat carryovers as their own document request. Ask for the prior return, then pull them out yourself.
Frequently asked questions
What documents do I need to give my tax preparer?
At a minimum: government photo ID, Social Security cards for everyone on the return, last year’s tax return, all W-2s and 1099s you received, mortgage and property tax statements if you own a home, and receipts for any deductions or credits you plan to claim. Your preparer will send a checklist tailored to your situation.
How far back should tax records be kept?
The IRS recommends keeping tax records for at least three years from the filing date, and seven years if you claimed a loss from worthless securities or a bad debt deduction. Keep records of home purchases and business assets for as long as you own the property, plus three years after you dispose of it.
Can I send my tax documents by email?
You can, but you shouldn’t. Email is not encrypted end-to-end and tax documents contain everything an identity thief needs. Use a secure client portal instead. Most modern tax preparers provide one at no extra cost.
What’s the difference between a 1099-NEC and a 1099-MISC?
1099-NEC reports non-employee compensation — money paid to independent contractors, freelancers and consultants. 1099-MISC covers other types of payments: rents, royalties, prizes, awards and legal settlements. Before 2020 both types of income were reported on the 1099-MISC.
Do I need to bring cryptocurrency records to my tax preparer?
Yes. If you bought, sold, received or spent cryptocurrency during the year, bring the transaction history from every exchange or wallet you used. Every taxpayer answers a digital asset question on Form 1040, and unreported crypto activity is one of the IRS’s stated enforcement priorities.
Give your clients a checklist that works
The best tax preparer document checklist is one your clients actually complete. That means grouping requests by situation, hiding what doesn’t apply, sending scheduled reminders and giving people a place to upload that isn’t their email drafts folder.
If you’re still doing this over email, one tax season with a branded document portal will pay for itself in recovered hours. Try Superdocu free — no credit card required — and send your first client intake checklist in under ten minutes.