Have you ever come to that fateful day early in the year when it’s get your taxes done – and had a feeling on anguish over whether you have what you need to get it done?

It doesn’t matter if you’re filing your taxes online, having them done by a paid preparer, or even doing them by hand, the burden of having everything together you will need to get the taxes filed as you need them, falls squarely on your own shoulders, and you have to be prepared to make it happen.

So what should you do now, and what should you be doing as tax deadlines approach?

First, don’t panic. One of the great benefits of the increasing use of is that much of the documentation of your income and expenses is maintained online now. Bank account charges and credit card expenses can all be found by setting up your account access online.

Also, wages, salaries, interest, dividends, 401(K) and IRA distributions, and many other forms of income are required to be documented on W-2′s or 1099 forms that will be mailed to you, usually in January, before you file your taxes.

With these items in hand, you have the vast majority of the documentation you need. Things like mileage logs, office calculations, etc. are items you need to create and maintain yourself, however, and these can be very important as they can save you large amounts of when you file. Keeping a log of mileage on your or notebook even daily is a good idea, and calculating the square footage that you use for a office is a simple process, and one you can maintain as long as you stay in the same .