Being a small business owner is no walk in the park. You\u2019ve got to put in a lot of hours to build the business. You\u2019ve got to find clients and customers and serve them well to generate repeat business and encourage referrals. You\u2019ve got to pay your employees and suppliers, fulfil your tax obligations and still come out of it all with a profit.<\/p>\n
As a small business owner, you\u2019ll have to pay several different taxes, so it\u2019s important to understand these obligations and how to meet them. Otherwise, you can incur penalties from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which is bad for business, of course.<\/p>\n
There are six main taxes you\u2019ll have to pay as a business owner:<\/p>\n
Doing and managing your taxes is complicated, but there are some basics you can follow to make life much easier.<\/p>\n
Collect and store your records effectively to file your tax returns more easily. Store records for income, expenses, payroll and any assets you\u2019ve purchased as the year progresses.<\/p>\n
Keeping your personal account and business one separate makes it easier to track your expenses<\/a>. It will also help you to keep your taxes down because if you\u2019re paying for something for your business from a personal account, you\u2019ll likely forget some expenses and pay more tax.<\/p>\n As a small business, you can deduct a host of things that help you operate your business, such as home office expenses, vehicle and travel ones, professional services, insurance, education and training, marketing, rent and utilities and more. This reduces the amount eligible for tax.<\/p>\n Note how important it is to make use of the resources you have already. Your accounting software is likely to include some tax form resources<\/a>, sparing you from having to buy them at an office supplies store.<\/p>\n Sales tax is hard to keep on top of. Often, it\u2019s beneficial to invest in software that helps you to track it. Keep detailed records of customers<\/a> and transactions, track the states and localities where you have customers, and reconcile your books regularly. All this will enable you to spot any errors early and amend them to pay the right amount of taxes.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t get your returns in on time, the IRS will hit you with a fine, so it\u2019s essential to know the tax schedule. Make sure you\u2019re aware of the requirements of different states and localities, too, for filing them.<\/p>\n Setting aside money each month will help you to make your estimated taxes payments each quarter. If you\u2019re just starting your business and your income is sporadic or varies depending on the season, this practice is especially helpful. Keeping them in a separate account will ensure you don\u2019t allocate the money<\/a> to other things for your business.<\/p>\n As a business owner, you\u2019ll have to fulfil various tax obligations. Despite their complexity, understanding your obligations and then organizing yourself well will make meeting them much easier.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Being a small business owner is no walk in the park. You\u2019ve got to put in a lot of hours to build the business. You\u2019ve got to find clients and customers and serve them well to generate repeat business and encourage referrals. You\u2019ve got to pay your employees and suppliers, fulfil your tax obligations and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4882],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-finance-and-accounting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esoftskills.com\/dm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esoftskills.com\/dm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esoftskills.com\/dm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esoftskills.com\/dm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esoftskills.com\/dm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11371"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/esoftskills.com\/dm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11447,"href":"https:\/\/esoftskills.com\/dm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11371\/revisions\/11447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esoftskills.com\/dm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esoftskills.com\/dm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esoftskills.com\/dm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esoftskills.com\/dm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Understand and choose what you can deduct<\/h3>\n
Track sales tax<\/h3>\n
Know the deadlines<\/h3>\n
Budget for taxes throughout the year<\/h3>\n