By bscsupport - March 7, 2022
Categories: General

It’s that time of year again. Spring is almost here and so is tax season. And if your business made any money at all in the last year, you will have to deal with at least one of these five business taxes:

  • Employment taxes
  • Self-employment taxes
  • Income taxes
  • Excise taxes
  • Estimated taxes

Tax season means stress, and additional concerns for your business. But it doesn’t have to. Here are the main things you need to get together for whoever does your taxes.

Last Year’s Tax File

It’s always harder to start from scratch. Taking all your information and inputting it into a fresh file, takes extra effort. That’s why it’s a good idea to bring last year’s tax documents with you to your tax appointment this year. Your preparer will be able to take that information and copy all the relevant parts quickly and efficiently. And it will give them an idea of what your taxes will look like. 

Receipts, Invoices, and Expenses

Having all your receipts and incoming invoices together is extremely important. As far as taxes are concerned, if you don’t have a receipt, then it didn’t happen. Putting all your receipts together into a single file and bringing them to your tax preparer will smooth out the process. It’s even better if you have them somewhat organized chronologically. 

Also if you use your vehicle for work, you will need to bring the data you use to calculate the amount of mileage you can write off for a personal vehicle or the vehicle expenses for a company vehicle. All business expenses should be gathered into a file so your preparer can access all your expenses and accurately represent them in your taxes.

Your Books

As far as your books go, you will need to bring a copy of each of these three documents to your preparer: your cash flow statement, your balance sheet, and your income statement. Each document will help your preparer accurately assess the taxes for your business. However, there is one very important caveat for this. Your books need to be ordered properly. 

Having a bookkeeper who manages your accounts and keeps your books in order all year is the best way to prepare for tax season. All the receipts you need, as well as the documents listed above, are kept ready to go by your bookkeeper so you won’t have to do the mad scramble to assemble all the things you need. It may be too late for you this year, but waiting till next tax season isn’t a solution either. If you want to go into tax season prepared and confident with everything you need assembled ahead of time, now is the time to talk to a bookkeeper and implement a system such as QuickBooks to track your invoices, expenses, sales, and more. And I would love the opportunity to speak with you about your business’ needs.