As the year comes to an end, now is the perfect time to get a head start on your business taxes. While personal taxes aren’t due until April 15, 2018, your business taxes must be completed and filed a full month earlier on March 15, 2018. If you’re want to make sure this tax season goes by without any hiccups, it’s best to get your tax planning started sooner rather than later. To get yourself better organized, there are a few key steps you can follow. In addition to enlisting the help of our knowledgeable and experienced taxation planning team, we suggest doing a bit of prep work ahead of time as well.
How to Prepare Your Business for Tax Season
With just 5 simple but important steps, you can easily help to better prepare your business for the upcoming tax season and give yourself peace of mind. While our experts are here to handle the more confusing elements of filing your taxes this year, these preparation steps will help to keep you organized and make the whole process run smoothly.
1. Send Out Your Own 1099s
If your business works with independent contractors or freelancers that were paid $600 or more in 2017, you must file a 1099 IRS form. You must send this form to your contractors is January 31, 2018, and the form must be sent to the IRS by February 28, 2018.
No one wants to be stuck scrambling to find the right social security numbers and addresses of the people who need 1099 forms from their business at the last minute, so be sure that you always have freelancers complete a W-9.
2. Create a File Folder
If you are on the receiving end of 1099 or other tax forms from your clients, you should receive them all no later than January 31, 2018. However, it’s always a good idea to be prepared for some late forms to trickle in. To keep this paperwork better organized, create a “taxes” folder to store each form as it comes in. This folder will grow in size over the next few months, so be sure to keep it readily accessible.
3. Have Old Forms Ready To Go
While you may still be a few months away from filing your taxes, gathering important forms ahead of time is one of the easiest ways to stay organized as your business prepares to take on a new quarter.
To get a better sense of how much income you’ll get taxed on and how much you spent last year on tax-eligible expenses –like business travel, payroll, office supplies, etc –you need to print out a profit and loss statement from last year. This report should be easy to find in your accounting software and once you’ve found it, be sure to stick a copy in your taxes folder.
4. Get a Head Start on Your Payment Planning
It’s really never too early to start thinking about your payment plan. Most businesses are likely to have to pay something for their taxes, so take the time to consider how you plan on doing so. Whether you’ve got money set aside in savings already or you need to start putting some money into your savings account right now, if you aren’t able to pay your taxes in full right now, don’t get too carried away. The IRS is usually happy to work out a payment plan with businesses.
5. Bring in the Professionals
Now that you’ve done some important prep work, it’s time to contact our team of income tax planning specialists. The tax process is always complex and when it comes to your business, there’s no use in taking chances. With our expert guidance and thorough knowledge of tax laws, we can easily help you identify any income adjustments that should be made and ensure that you pay the lowest amount possible to the IRS.
Schedule an Appointment Today
Now is not the time to get behind on your tax preparation; March will be here before you know it! So get yourself organized and contact the team at France Law Firm to schedule an initial income taxation planning session.
