Small Business Tax Preparedness

This is a short podcast (audio) to help small Florida businesses get ready for preparing business taxes and to hopefully take some of the anxiety out of the experience.

Ron Johnson from the Small Business Administration talks with Thomas Ochsenschlager, the VP of Taxation for the AICPA.

Highlights from the podcast:

Ron Johnson: Tom, what are some of the things a small
business owner can do to get their small businesses ready for
tax season?

Thomas Ochsenschlager: Well, I guess the no-brainer is to
get your books and records in order. You certainly do not want
to be paying a professional to be sifting through a whole bunch
of books and records you have in a shoebox or something. And
you should be doing that all year round, not just when tax time
comes around. The problem here, of course, is that small
business people are in the business of whatever business they
are in and a lot of times getting their own books and records in
order is something they put in kind of the backburner because
they are more interested in making money in their day-to-day
activities. So it is something they need to have in the front
of their mind as they go through the year.

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Ron Johnson: How about home-based businesses? What are
some of the unique deductions or taxes pertaining to home-based businesses?

Thomas Ochsenschlager: This gets a little tricky, Ron, but
if you perform the essential functions of your business in your
home, so let’s say you bill all your clients out of your house,
and in the end this is really important here, you have a place
in the house that is dedicated to the business. The IRS takes a
dim view if you do this in your family room and also have a TV
there where you watch the Super Bowl or something.

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– this conversation is finished on the podcast.

Getting Your Small Business Ready for Tax Season

Excellent suggestions for helping small Florida business owners prepare taxes. Covered are topics such as home-based offices – and deductions, typical startup costs for new businesses and more.

( Transcript)

If you have any tax tips for small Florida businesses that you want to share with other Florida business owners and readers of this site, please put them in the comments below. Thanks!