Finally, make sure that you keep important documents, such as receipts, canceled checks, and bills, so you can be prepared if your return gets audited by the IRS. Income sources include revenues from your business operations and any investment or secondary income. Calculating Stripe fees for customer payments is easy with our calculator. Enter the payment amount to calculate Stripe’s transaction fees and what you should charge to receive the full amount.
Lastly, taxes are due on the next business day if the filing deadline falls on a weekend or federal holiday. If you’ve kept up with recording and categorizing every single business transaction since the start of the year – you get a gold star. “Playing catch up will take some time and you won’t remember all your expenses after so much time has passed. Being consistent is critical to ensure everything is accurately accounted for before you close your books,” says Patel. Your phone and internet costs may be business deductions if they are necessary to your operation.
The Ultimate Small Business Tax Preparation Checklist
But it also means you have some employment taxes to take care of, and you need them to be correct. Half of the self-employment tax is deductible on your tax return, so you only pay the “employee” portion of the tax –the same as you’d pay as a regular W-2 employee. Being self-employed doesn’t mean you get to skip out on those FICA payroll taxes you paid as a W-2 employee. Run payroll on any device with taxes, compliance & reporting built-in.
Even better, you can write off eligible expenses paid for using your grant or loan funds. This includes payroll expenses, rent, employee benefits, and more. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. If you have a simple tax return, you can file for free yourself with TurboTax Free Edition, or you can file with TurboTax Live Assisted Basic or TurboTax Live Full Service Basic at the listed price. TurboTax Premium searches 500 tax deductions to get you every dollar you deserve.
Small business tax preparation checklist 2023: 6 steps business owners should know
These have their own deadlines, so it’s important to keep all of them straight to ensure none of them slip through the cracks. To help with that, below you’ll see a short tax checklist for small business to follow. By following it step by step, you’ll be able to ensure that you take care of every task you need to do without running afoul of any rules or regulations from the IRS or state and local tax authorities.
Keep meticulous receipts and records so as not to miss any of these, as these can count towards partial or full deductions. Choosing the right form to file your business tax preparation checklist taxes depends on how you originally set up your business from a legal standpoint. Striking out on your own in the tax preparation business is a tall order.