January 15 - January 19
This week the focus of my internship has been company training. To properly perform the tasks I will be assigned this tax season, I have been trained on specific tax documents and the company's tax preparation software. After 12 hours of training this week, I have been familiarized with the following tax forms: 1040, Schedule A, Schedule B, Schedule D, W2, and Brokerage Statements.
On Friday, I attended HintonBurdick's annual "busy season training." In this meeting with all company personnel, we were trained on changes in the tax software, and the procedures to be followed to make this year's tax season run smoothly.
Because I am the only intern working in the Cedar City office, I have had to take initiative in scheduling times to watch trainings, and meeting with my manager to discuss questions and concerns. I feel this first week has helped me develop as a leader through the need to be proactive, responsible, and persistent.
January 22 - January 26
As of Friday afternoon, I am officially done with the training segment of my internship and may now begin preparing actual tax returns. Training this week consisted of about 7 hours of tax form presentations, and 2 hours of a case study.
The case study was by far the best part of the internship so far because I got to put all of my training into practice. Using documents such as W2 forms, brokerage statements, charitable contribution forms, etc I prepared a tax return for a fictitious customer. It was a challenge, but provided me opportunities to develop the leadership characteristic of humility.
As this is a new job, there is high pressure to make a good impression. Thus, knowing that this was a practice tax return, I did not want to ask too many questions. I felt this would make me seem unknowledgeable or incapable. However, I understood my need to learn correct procedures outweighed the need to appear as the perfect intern. Therefore I humbled myself and looked to peers and superiors for insights and clarifications. I feel this is an important characteristic for leaders, to acknowledge that one does not in fact know everything.
This week the focus of my internship has been company training. To properly perform the tasks I will be assigned this tax season, I have been trained on specific tax documents and the company's tax preparation software. After 12 hours of training this week, I have been familiarized with the following tax forms: 1040, Schedule A, Schedule B, Schedule D, W2, and Brokerage Statements.
On Friday, I attended HintonBurdick's annual "busy season training." In this meeting with all company personnel, we were trained on changes in the tax software, and the procedures to be followed to make this year's tax season run smoothly.
Because I am the only intern working in the Cedar City office, I have had to take initiative in scheduling times to watch trainings, and meeting with my manager to discuss questions and concerns. I feel this first week has helped me develop as a leader through the need to be proactive, responsible, and persistent.
January 22 - January 26
As of Friday afternoon, I am officially done with the training segment of my internship and may now begin preparing actual tax returns. Training this week consisted of about 7 hours of tax form presentations, and 2 hours of a case study.
The case study was by far the best part of the internship so far because I got to put all of my training into practice. Using documents such as W2 forms, brokerage statements, charitable contribution forms, etc I prepared a tax return for a fictitious customer. It was a challenge, but provided me opportunities to develop the leadership characteristic of humility.
As this is a new job, there is high pressure to make a good impression. Thus, knowing that this was a practice tax return, I did not want to ask too many questions. I felt this would make me seem unknowledgeable or incapable. However, I understood my need to learn correct procedures outweighed the need to appear as the perfect intern. Therefore I humbled myself and looked to peers and superiors for insights and clarifications. I feel this is an important characteristic for leaders, to acknowledge that one does not in fact know everything.
January 29 - February 2
This week's work hours were spent entirely on preparing tax returns. Some returns are easy to complete as they consist only of a few W2 forms and interest statements from banks. Other returns are more difficult because I have to decipher pages filled with client's chicken-scratch handwriting, and translate it into tax-related expenses.
The leadership skill I felt was developed this week was the ability to follow-up. It is important that leaders follow-up on projects or assignments that are being completed without them. After I have finished preparing a tax return, the returns are to be sent to a reviewer who makes sure I have done everything correctly. When they find mistakes, they are to make a note on each mistake, send the return back to me, and allow me to fix my mistakes and learn from them. After finishing a few returns, I had not seen any returns come back from the reviewer. Knowing I was new and bound to make mistakes, I wanted to know what they were and how to avoid them in the future. To do this, I followed up with the person who reviewed my returns and asked for feedback. He told me he had not sent them back because there had been no major issues. Later however, this reviewer called me into his office to fix mistakes I had made on other returns. I believe my willingness to follow-up on my own work proved a desire to do well and a desire to learn. Since then, I have received much more feedback and learned a lot more about the tax preparation process.
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