Small Business Matters – Hire a Good Bookkeeper and Avoid IRS Tax Problems
When I was on Small Business Matters on BlogTalkRadio.com last week, I shared with host Regina McRae the humble beginnings of TRS – which started out like so many small businesses. So I know how demanding it can be to run your own company, no matter what the size!
At the last position I held at a large company, I saved my employer $12 million in an audit. And all I got was a pat on the back. They said “Good job, Mike. That’s what we’re paying you for.” I decided that if I can solve IRS problems for companies, I can do the same thing for individuals. I studied the market and there really weren’t that many people at the time doing that. Most individuals just rolled over and let the IRS do whatever they wanted.
So I put an ad in the paper. It was a blind ad saying warning: Do not call the IRS if you have IRS problems. Call us first. We had 88 phone calls within 4 days and I turned to my wife and said, “You know, I think we have a business here!”
Mind you back then I was without a job, a mortgage, and 2 kids. I went into about $100K debt on plastic. And 11 years later, we now have 50 employees! And we’re probably the largest tax resolution firm west of the Mississippi. We’re national in scope and we have 5 tax attorneys on staff, 4 CPAs, 2 enrolled agents!
The I also shared with Regina and her listeners a sobering fact about being a business owner: 25% to 30% of my clientele are small business owners that have tax problems.
This is not what small business owners want to hear. But one easy way to avoid tax problems is to hire a good bookkeeper.
For instance, you need to have a capable bookkeeper who knows double entry accounting. There are very few good bookkeepers out there that know double entry accounting. There’s always got to be a debit and a corresponding credit, and they have to go to the right place. So in other words, if you record a sale you have to debit accounts receivable and credit sales. When you get the cash in, you debit the cash and credit the receivables.
One way to tell if you do have one – You are going to have to pay for a good bookkeeper. If someone is charging you $25 an hour for bookkeeping, it’s very possibly that they don’t know what they’re doing. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having a good bookkeeper.
Stay tuned to learn about more important tax issues relevant to today’s small business owner or listen to my interview on BlogTalkRadio interview for more tax tips and advice.
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Tags: bookkeeping, IRS tax advice, small business owners, tax expert, tax help, tax resolution
October 20th, 2008 at 8:13 am
[...] I was on Small Business Matters on blogtalkradio last week, I told host Regina McRae that 25% to 30% of my tax relief clients are small businesses with tax [...]
December 12th, 2008 at 11:27 am
[...] for anyone who runs their own company because Regina discusses important issues like how to handle small business finances and also explores more in depth topics like payroll [...]