Did you cringe when you read the title of this post? If you’re like a lot of people you probably did and that’s okay. We’re here to help small business owners learn simple ways to relieve the stress of tax season. Like with most things, planning is a big part of the tax puzzle. How your business is structured determines tax status and filing. Whether you have employees or independent contractors is another piece of the tax puzzle.

Here are seven tax season tips for small business that we hope will help decrease the dread of tax season for you:

1. Make a tax prep or tax review appointment with your tax professional. Rest assured no one wants to pay taxes and yes, sometimes it’s like pulling off a band-aid. Knowing where you stand with the state and IRS is better than the stress of not knowing and wondering.
2. Schedule quarterly meetings to review accounting reports like Profit and Loss statements so you can make changes as needed throughout the year. Nothing worse than being hit with a huge tax bill when you can avoid it through planning and review.
3. Separate bank accounts: If you don’t have separate personal and business bank accounts, do that sooner rather than later.
4. Organize for the New Year: Implement an organization system for business expenses and paperwork. It can be as simple as an envelope of papers for each month of the year. Our clients for whom we do bookkeeping bring their envelopes in monthly or quarterly. Find a simple system for your business and stick to it.
5. Understand your write-offs: Depending on how you file taxes for your business will determine the write-offs that you can take. For example, a sole proprietor working from a home office filing a Schedule-C will take percentages of mortgage or rent payment, utilities and other expenses. Other business structures take other write-offs.
6. Track mileage: At $.55 per mile it is worth your time to track mileage. There are mobile apps you can use so it really is a push of a button.
7. Outsource: You don’t need to be the expert at everything.

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