5 Simple Tax Tips for Individuals and Small Businesses

As it’s the first day of Fall, I’d like to take this time to remind everyone that it’s never to early to start preparing your 2008 taxes. So I’m sharing some essential tax advice that can help you avoid common filing problems, as well as some easy tips for avoiding stress during your tax preparation, plus insider insight for saving time and money when dealing with IRS.

1. Be Careful and Thorough. Avoid common problems like illegible hand writing, mathematical errors, transposition of numbers, and missing signature. These little oversights can end up costing you time and money if you are slapped with penalties.

2. Get Organized. Allow enough time to get your “stuff” in order. For example, properly categorizing your expenditures now will save you a lot of time later. Come tax time, you will be glad you grouped your expenditures by category (match it with verbiage on Schedule C if self-employed) and not by month or name of vendor payee.

3. Be Flexible. Timing your cash flow can save you money. In other words, always accelerate deductions in the year you are doing taxes for and always defer income, if you can, into the next year, thereby lowering your current year’s tax bite. If you fall into the Alternative Minimum Tax, you may want a professional to advise you.

4. Know When To Ask for Help. Tax preparation tools like TurboTax and TaxCut are great, but people with anything more than a straight W-2 (including anyone with even the smallest business “Schedule C”) should be aware of the limitations of these software programs.

5. Don’t be Penny Wise and Pound Foolish. Hiring an expert CPA or EA to prepare your return is a small annual investment that can pay off big! Don’t do your taxes yourself unless you are a straight W-2 wage earner that takes the Standard Deductions (in other words, someone who doesn’t itemize or have any unreimbursed employee business expenses).

Also remember that you can always get tax help if you have any questions or need help solving your IRS problems!

More Tax Help, IRS News and Tax Relief Tips:

  1. Hire a Good Number Cruncher: Save Money and Avoid IRS Problems
  2. Tax Help: How to Resolve Your Back Taxes & Prevent Tax Problems If You’re Short on Cash This Season
  3. What the IRS May Not Tell You About Payment Plans
  4. Small Business Tax Incentives and Credits in American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009
  5. Tax Help for Taxpayers with IRS Problems - Act Fast to Take Advantage of Temporary Tax Breaks!

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 11:43 am and is filed under Seeking Professional Tax Help, Tax news and tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “5 Simple Tax Tips for Individuals and Small Businesses”

  1. » Save Money and Reduce Your IRS Bill With Simple Year-End Tax Tips » Tax Relief Tips from the Experts at Tax Resolution University » Blog Archive Says:
    December 11th, 2008 at 6:19 am

    [...] recently blogged about the things taxpayers can do before December 31, 2008 to reduce the tax bill due on April 15, [...]

  2. Don’t Let Back Taxes Cripple Your Financial Future-Get Expert Tax Help to Protect Yourself and Your Small Business From IRS Penalties | Tax Relief Tips from the Experts at Tax Resolution University Says:
    December 21st, 2009 at 10:22 am

    [...] that you will not be held responsible for your company’s IRS back taxes. Here are some simple tax help tips for small business owners to consider when planning [...]

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