Understanding the S Corp Election for Sole Proprietors and Single-Member LLCs If you’re a sole proprietor or a single member LLC, you’ve probably heard some version of this advice lately:“You should elect S corporation status, you'll save thousands in taxes.” It might be showing up in your inbox, your social feed, and increasingly coming from CPA firms. The message seems simple, confident, and appealing. It’s also incomplete. To be sure, for some small businesses there are r

Most self-employed folks already know they’re supposed to make quarterly estimated tax payments. And yet… so many of them still don’t . I mean, I get it….when you’re running a business, managing all the things, and wearing ten different hats, quarterly taxes are easy to push aside. But ignoring them can create some frustrating and expensive consequences when tax season rolls around. What happens when quarterly taxes aren’t paid? When taxes aren’t paid throughout the year, t

Inevitably during tax season, working with artists and creatives who earn money from their work, questions about whether their practice qualifies as a business for tax purposes always come up. If this is something you’ve been unsure about, you’re not alone. It’s a common question I get from artists and creatives, and the answer has important financial implications . Here are the basics of what you need to know regarding whether the IRS thinks your creative endeavor is a busi

About eight months into their new business, Pete and Dottie decided it was time to engage an outside bookkeeper. A friend of theirs met a guy at a conference who said he was looking to add more small business clients to his accounting firm. The friend passed along the guy’s card to Peter and Dottie and they called. The guy told them all about his company and the services they offer, and gave them an estimate for monthly bookkeeping less than half the amount of the other two e