Kayla Nguyen

Mentor Visit

15 January 2020

Evidence of Learning #1

During my first mentor visit, I was exposed to a financial report called a Form 10-Q. These

reports are done quarterly and are mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission; they are to be

filed by publicly traded companies. It’s intent is to display a company’s performance and disclose all

information regarding their financial position. The form provides potential investors with the financial

statements, internal controls, management discussion and analysis, and disclosures. If a company failed to

meet the filing deadline, they would have to then file it differently as a non-timely (NT) filing and provide

an explanation for the tardiness.

As I continued to research the different forms that involve tax and finance, I came across a Form

W-2. A W-2 is a wage and tax statement that an employer is required to give each of their employees at

the end of each year. It reports the amount of taxes that were withheld from an employee’s paycheck and

their annual wages. Essentially the employer deducts taxes from their employees’ paychecks and sends

this information to the IRS. However if one is self-employed, then that is a completely different form A

self-employed person could be a freelancer, independent contractor or a sole proprietor and they would

report self-employment income.

Another form that stuck out to me was a Form-1040 which is the individual income tax return

form. The filers will complete each section of the form and disclose their taxable income for the year and

that information is used to calculate additional taxes owed or refunded. These need to be filled out usually

by April 15th of every year. As of 2018, the old Form-1040 was overhauled and remodeled for a shorter

version, which supposedly is easier to manage. Most people complete their taxes through a software

called TurboTax, which is the number one selling tax preparation software and files taxes online. It
allows people to do their own books and accounting rather than hiring an accountant to complete them,

which could possibly be more time consuming.