November 6, 2024 • 25 mins
There are SO many things for business owners to do at the end of the year + the first month of the new year! It's a LOT!
This episodes guides you through what you should check off your list before the end of 2024. We help you get organized for tax time and explain what you can do before the year ends to reduce your taxes!
With these actionable insights, equip yourself to minimize tax liabilities, align with your business needs, and confidently step into the new year penalty-free.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you are somebody that typically does Christmas
bonuses or year-end bonuses foryour employees, you need to know
about what that's going to be.
It's going to make your taxprojection much more accurate,
because we usually look at thesalaries of every month and
that's part of our taxprojection.
But if in December the salariesare going to be much higher,
well then your profit's going tobe lower and you won't have
(00:20):
quite as much tax, so we need tofactor that in.
You won't have quite as muchtax, so we need to factor that
in.
Welcome to what your CPA Wantsyou To Know.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Tax and accounting help can be expensive, so we've
created this podcast to helpguide you through it all and
make you feel like you have aCPA in your back pocket.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I'm Carson Sands.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And I'm Taryn Sands.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
CPA in your back pocket.
I'm Carson Sands and I'm TarynSands.
I'm a CPA with over 10 years ofexperience helping people start
and grow their businesses.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And I'm an MBA with a specialization in marketing and
entrepreneurship.
Taxes suck and we want to makesure you don't pay more than
your fair share.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
We're here to share everything your CPA wants you to
know in a fun and easy tounderstand way.
Let's get started.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Let's do it Today.
We are going to help you getorganized for the end of the tax
year.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Just what you always wanted to do with your time.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Just what you always wanted to do with your time.
So exciting, I know, but ifyou're a business owner, you
know how many things are on yourlist for the end of the year,
but then ramping into January,If you get a head start on it,
not only will you feel so muchbetter, but your accountant
might give you a gold star.
That's true.
We do give out gold stars toanyone that is ready to go in
(01:45):
January so we can file their taxreturn, because we need to get
on top of it.
We got to start in January.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Alexa add gold stars to my Amazon shopping list.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
If you are a client and you're listening, please get
us your stuff as soon aspossible, because we have a lot
of returns on the list.
It's so nice to get started inJanuary and it's very possible
for business tax returns if youdo everything that we share
today.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, and if you have a refund coming, then the
sooner you file, the fasteryou'll get it, and if you're
going to owe, the sooner youfile, the longer you have to
make plans to make that payment,because it's due April 15th.
So if you have three months tofigure that out, that's very
helpful.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And did you know that most people aren't aware that
they do have to pay their taxesby April 15th, even though, even
if they file an extensionbecause I pulled everyone and
most people don't know that?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Which everyone's like .
But how do we know how much topay?
I'm like you don't, you have toguess, so it's better to fall
on time.
Now, some people they don'thave a choice.
They have to extend fordifferent reasons and we can
always come up with an estimatefor you.
In that case, we do it all thetime.
But it's better to fall on timeif you can, because then you
know exactly how much to pay.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, and as a business owner Like there's not
going to be things we're waitingon specifically like a K-1 or
something like that it's bestjust to get it done with,
because you know there's all ofthese things you have to start
doing for the next year, and soto get the previous year wrapped
up is really important, becausethen you get just bombarded
with all this other crap youhave to do as a business owner.
(03:19):
So the best thing to do is tryto focus on it now, get
everything wrapped up and knockit out in January.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So, the very first thing, we just set down a mail
list of all the things that wedo and we recommend that our
clients do, and this is justgetting you organized for the
end of the year so that you cando all the filings and you don't
miss anything.
And the first thing on our listis to finish your bookkeeping
and reconcile.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
There's so many reasons why that's number one
important and very first thingyou need to do.
First of all, as you get intotax season in February and March
and start discovering issues inyour books, then it's going to
be really difficult for youraccountant to take time to fix
that.
But at this time of the year wehave so much more time
available to fix any problemsthat come up like that.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
We're happy to help with bookkeeping now.
We do not want you to beconfused in March or April
saying, oh, these numbers don'tlook right, I have no idea.
And then we have to go diggingthrough to see what happened.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Well, no, then we have to file an extension.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah because we just have to say I'm sorry, we cannot
deal with bookkeeping issuesright now.
We have to extend you and do itin the summer, now.
So if you're listening rightnow and you're thinking, oh yeah
, like I know, there's a fewissues in my QuickBooks and I
need to get that fixed so that Ican get my numbers together, do
it now.
Now is your sign to book thatappointment or get with your
(04:38):
bookkeeper so that you get thatdone now.
All bookkeeping issues, numberone step.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
And that means categorize and reconcile both.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Okay, explain what categorizing is and explain what
reconciling is, because mostpeople, when they say they're
doing their bookkeeping, arecategorizing but they're not
reconciling.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Okay, so categorizing if you're in, let's say,
quickbooks, you just go down thelist of transactions that come
in from your bank statement, orthey come in from your bank auto
flow and you just say, allright, that was Bucky's, that
was fuel expense, this was, youknow, walmart, that was supplies
.
You just go down the list andyou categorize those into the
(05:15):
right expense account.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And you do all of them until there's none in
QuickBooks and you're like, oh,I'm good to go.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
But what's the next part of it?
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Then you reconcile.
There is a feature inQuickBooks or any accounting
software where you actually goin and you get the bank
statement from your onlinebanking and you get the ending
balance for each month and youput that into QuickBooks and
then QuickBooks will help you dothat reconciliation.
It will make sure that all ofthe transactions that came into
(05:42):
QuickBooks, plus whatever thebeginning bank balance was,
matches what the ending bankbalance is, and all that does is
really make sure that everytransaction actually came
through, because technicalglitches happen all the time and
if you don't reconcile, youwould never notice.
If you're missing three days ofdata from your bank account and
I promise it happens a lot butif you do a bank reconciliation,
(06:04):
you'll know very quickly hey,something's wrong, it doesn't
match, I'm probably missing somedata.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
And sometimes duplicate transactions pull in.
There's a lot of issues andQuickBooks does get disconnected
more times than we would like.
So if you're using QuickBooks,absolutely make sure you're
reconciling.
So you want to make sure you'vereconciled all the way through
October, right now, and thenmake sure you finish it up for
the end of the year.
But if you are using some othersoftware, like Carson said,
(06:32):
they should have that capability.
But if you're using aspreadsheet, you can still do
the same thing.
What you would want to do isjust make sure that the income
for that month matches yourdeposits on your bank statements
and the money and your expensesmatch.
So you can still do thosedouble checks.
That's what reconciling does,is it makes sure that your
numbers are correct.
(06:52):
So you can still do that ifyou're not using QuickBooks.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
And it's a really good idea.
So this kind of goes along withthe bookkeeping.
But another thing you should doearly on is make sure this is
step two right, yes, we're goingto step two.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Okay, step two.
This has to be actionable stepsfor all the listeners.
Oh, actionable, step number two.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Number two Is gather up all your asset purchase
documentation and either addthat into your bookkeeping
whether it's a spreadsheet or asoftware like QuickBooks or get
it to your accountant so thatthey can do it for you.
Now, a lot of people they dothe day-to-day bookkeeping, but
when it comes to a largepurchase, like a vehicle or some
heavy equipment, it's nottreated the exact same way as
(07:32):
just buying office supplies is,and so you might need a little
help with that.
This is a great time of theyear to get that done and make
sure that it's added into yourbookkeeping software so that
it's being accounted forproperly.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
And for example, just because that was kind of
accounting, just if you bought acar and you have that, you know
two pages that shows what youbought, the date you bought it,
how much it was all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Any trade-ins?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, that's what we're going to need to be able
to add that to your QuickBooks,for example.
Or if you bought a trailer,anything like that, any large
purchases over $2,500, we needto add that into your
bookkeeping.
So now is the time to get allthat paperwork together if you
don't have it nice and organizedso that that is included in
(08:18):
your books.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And the reason that's so often not included is that,
unlike office supplies, forexample, which you spent $200 on
office supplies that comes infrom the bank, you categorize it
in QuickBooks.
It's easy.
Well, usually when you go buy acar, you don't just write a
check for $60,000.
So there's no $60,000transaction coming through the
bank, but you still have a$60,000 expense.
(08:40):
It's just that you financed itor you had some trade in or
something like that.
We want to make sure you getcredit for that deduction and
you're not going to, unless ifyou somehow adjust that into
your books properly, becauseyou're not going to see that
$60,000 line item come acrossyour bank account.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Exactly, and you want to make sure that you are
taking depreciation to accountwhen you're making sure that
you've paid in enough taxes andthat depreciation isn't going to
be on your books.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
So that brings us to the reason why the assets and
getting your books caught upstep one and two are so
important is because of stepthree.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Are you ready to feel confident with your personal
finances?
Have you planned your retirementsavings or looked into life
insurance for you and yourfamily?
We meet with clients all thetime to talk about their
financial goals and theirpersonal finances, and we kept
getting the same questions overand over again.
For that reason, we compiledeverything that we want you to
(09:45):
know into a workbook.
In the personal financeworkbook, we help you focus on
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plan to stick to them.
We walk you through the advicethat we give on budgeting,
paying down debt, building upyour savings for those
unexpected events, calculatingwhat you should be saving for
(10:05):
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to protect your family, and youget one month of email support
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This workbook is priced at $37,which is so much cheaper than
sitting down with your CPA, andit has everything we want you to
(10:27):
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If you're interested inchecking it out and ready to
meet your financial goals, checkthe show notes for the link to
purchase.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Step three is to get a tax projection.
You can't get a tax projectionunless if you've done steps one
and two, or you can, but itwon't be worth anything because-
.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
We won't do one.
We won't do a tax projection ifyour books aren't together and
you don't have your assets to us.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Because it won't mean anything, because the data
won't be accurate.
But if you have everything upthrough October in your
bookkeeping software and youhave all of your assets added in
, we're going to have a reallygood picture of what your profit
for the year should look like.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And in case anyone doesn't know what is a tax
projection.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
A tax projection is just where we take the income
and expenses that you have forthe year so far and we use an
estimate of what your income andexpenses will be for the rest
of the year to kind of make aguess of what your total income
and your total taxes will be forthis tax year.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
And we'll see what you've already paid in, and then
that will give us a really goodestimate whether you are going
to owe a lot or you did a goodjob of estimating, or what you
need to do so that there are nosurprises whenever you have to
file your tax return in April.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
That's right.
It can really save you a lot inpenalties for not getting paid
in on time.
It can also make sure you setaside some money so you don't
have that heartache of oh Ispent all my money and now I
still owe taxes.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, I mean.
A lot of times we might do aprojection and we're like, okay,
you're going to owe $30,000.
And someone's like, oh, wow,you know I'm surprised, I didn't
even realize that I had madethat much money.
But yeah, you're right and atthe very least, that's a bad
feeling.
But you do have a few months toplan for that, instead of it
being, you know, april 1st andus telling you that you owe
(12:16):
thirty thousand dollars in 15days.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Right.
So that's the tax projectionand that's step number three.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
And you can do, and should do, a tax projection with
your CPA at least once a yearat this time Now you could also,
if you're really good at it andyou've been in business a long
time, you could just do a taxprojection yourself and just
make sure you've set aside acertain amount of percentage and
whatever.
I don't think a lot of peopleare very good at that, but some
(12:49):
business owners can do that.
Either way, you should beestimating how much in taxes
you're going to owe and makesure you've either set aside
that or paid in what you shouldpay in.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Right and Taryn's right.
I mean, you know you might notbe able to get as accurate as us
on things, but if you maybeyou're not a client of ours and
your CPA doesn't do this, or youdon't even use a CPA or
whatever it is If your businessdoesn't change that much from
year to year, you might be ableto just easily look and say all
right, we made $20,000 more thanlast year.
That's a 10% increase.
(13:15):
This was what my tax was lastyear.
I probably owe about 10% moreand that's going to get you
pretty close.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, I think it's a good thing to do for small
businesses like sole proprietors, who are very comfortable with
what they've been paying intaxes every year and what their
general profit is.
So totally can be done.
This is just a great time ofthe year that you need to look
at it and make sure there's nosurprises.
So that was step three.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Right, right, okay, now step four Steps four, five
and six all kind of go alongwith step three, so I'm just
going to list them real quickand then I'll go into more
detail on each one.
Step four gather up ideas forpotential purchases.
So these are large assetpurchases that you haven't made
yet but you're considering Makea plan for year-end bonuses.
(14:00):
If you are somebody thattypically does Christmas bonuses
or year-end bonuses for youremployees, you need to know
about what that's going to be.
It's going to make your taxprojection much more accurate,
because we usually look at thesalaries of every month and
that's part of our taxprojection.
But if in December the salariesare going to be much higher,
well then your profit's going tobe lower and you won't have
(14:21):
quite as much tax.
So we need to factor that in.
And then number six retirementoptions.
Whether that's contributing toyour employee's retirement as a
nice little bonus or whetheryou're a sole proprietor and
you're just going to set asidemoney in your own retirement
account.
That will factor in to how muchyou owe in taxes and that needs
to be factored into a taxprojection.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
And all of this is basically the tax planning part
of the projection.
So not only will a projectiontell you like this is kind of
where you stand, but it is doneat a time where you still have
enough time left for the year todo something different.
If you do want to reduce yourtaxes, if you're going okay,
this is what we've been thinking, and you've been needing to
(15:05):
make a purchase, this is a goodtime to do it.
It would help lower your taxes.
But basically it's a time tostart thinking outside of the
box Is just to save on taxes.
It's silly.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You know you're going to save $24, but you're going
to spend a hundred to do it andjust to have something that sits
there and doesn't get used anddepreciates probably.
(15:34):
But if, let's say, you'rethinking about buying a vehicle
anyway, you need a new one.
You were going to get it inJanuary or February, but hey,
the taxes are going to be higherthan this year, than I was
thinking they would be, and weneed this new truck anyway, and
there's always really good dealsat the end of the year on
vehicles.
So I'm just going to go aheadand buy it in December and that
will offset some taxes for thisyear.
(15:55):
You know, that's something thatyou could do and a lot of times
this would surprise you.
But people have an idea thatthere's some things they want to
buy, but they have no idea whatthe cost of these things are.
So maybe, before your taxprojection, gather up some ideas
of, okay, this truck costs thatmuch or that equipment costs
this much, so that we canproperly factor that into the
(16:16):
tax projection.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
And sometimes this surprises people because they're
telling us, oh, in January orFebruary we're thinking of
buying a new van for thebusiness and this is how much
it's going to be.
And we're like, really, it'sbest that you buy it before the
year, before the end of the year, and that will help you with
your taxes, and that's justsomething that they didn't think
of.
So this is a good time toreview all of those and, like
(16:37):
Carson said, if you're thinking,oh, we really need a new
trailer, that might be somethingwe want to purchase, at least
look into how much they would beor how much you would be
spending on that item, so youcan do a tax projection.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
The reason.
I think a lot of times thatpeople aren't aware, because
some people might think thatsounds surprising, that they
want to buy these assets andthey don't know what it is.
But you know, a lot of timesyou have, let's say, the husband
does a certain job and the wifeis doing all the bookkeeping
and the things like that, andthen he's like, oh, we want to
buy this, we want to buy that,we want to buy that, and then
she's not really aware of howmuch those things cost.
(17:12):
He has an idea in his head, orvice versa.
This does happen a lot wherethe person that's operating the
business and the person that'sdoing the financial side are not
often the same person.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yeah, that happens all the time and I think if it's
something you've neverpurchased, you have no idea.
It could be $10,000 or $30,000.
You have no idea.
So a little research if it'ssomething that you're already
thinking of purchasing is muchneeded before you do your
projection.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And October and November are a great time to do
that, because people close inDecember.
It's really hard to get stuff.
So I'm not saying you can't gobuy something in December, but
already knowing what you want,at least by December, is a
really good idea.
Or else you could end up notgetting what you need until the
next year and then it's too lateto help you for taxes.
So just going back down thelist, I don't think we need a
(17:59):
lot more detail on number fiveand six, the uh, the yearend
bonuses and the retirementoptions, I think I kind of
already explained how that worksand why you need to have an
idea of what you might do onthat for tax projection purposes
.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And just getting organized.
It's the time for year-endbonuses.
Figure out what they're goingto be, figure out when you're
going to send them out.
All of that that's just somepart of your job as a business
owner, and making sure that getsdone should be on your list.
So number six was theretirement options looking into
if you're going to do that ornot, what you're going to do
there.
Number seven is gettingorganized to send out W-2s and
(18:34):
1099s.
So those aren't due untilJanuary.
But there actually is a lot todo with all of that, and now is
a good time to make sure thatyou have all your paperwork
together so that you can sendthose out.
And where we see people justkind of miss the mark on this is
where they're hiringcontractors and they want to go
ahead and send out their 1099,but they don't have their
(18:56):
information.
So that happens a lot.
If that's you you're like Ihired somebody and I didn't get
them to fill out the paperworkthen now is the time to start
tracking them down.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
And if you've been listening to our podcast, you
know that we hope that you'vealready got a W-9 filled out,
which is where you get theinformation for 1099s before
anybody did any work for you.
That's the best time.
You have the most leverage.
You're like they really wantthe work, they really want the
job, they want to get paid.
So all they have to do is fillout this paperwork and that's
(19:27):
great.
Now, if they've done the joband they're not doing any more
work for you and six monthslater you're asking them to fill
out this paperwork, they don'treally have a lot of incentives
to do it.
Whether it's just because it'sjust an extra step and they're
being lazy, or whether it'sbecause they don't want it to 99
because they weren't planningto pay taxes.
Whatever the reasoning is, youhave so much more leverage to
get that information in thebeginning.
(19:48):
But if you don't have it, thennow's the time.
Ask for those W-9s.
Start sending emails now sothat you don't get caught up and
miss the deadline in January.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
And that happens so much.
I do the majority of the 1099filings for our clients.
So they'd say here's all mycontractors and, in case we
didn't mention this, it's anyoneyou paid over $600 for in the
year that did contract work foryou.
You have to send a 1099 out forthem, and so they'll give me
their list.
And, lo and behold, there'smultiple people that they did
(20:20):
not get a W-9 for.
So then we're stuck trying toget everybody's information in
January, and we've been late ona lot of them because they
didn't have it.
So a little reminder to do thatright now.
Yeah, now's the time.
All right, moving on to numbereight.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
This one only applies to our S-corp owners, so if
you're not an S-corp owner yet,then you might be soon, so this
could still be important.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And it's still good information to know because, I
mean, I think I only learnedthis a couple of years ago and I
was like, wow, I actuallydidn't know that.
That's awesome, so explain whatit is and we use it and I think
a lot of people don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
This is doing additional payroll or a bonus
for yourself at the end of theyear.
This is very different fromyear-end bonuses for your
employees and planning for that,because what happens is you
have to pay in estimatedpayments quarterly through the
year or you get penalized if youhave business income.
Well, if you have an S-corp,you know that you have to be on
(21:20):
salary through your own companyand so you have a W-2 with
withholding.
Well, any withholding you have,no matter when it's paid in, is
treated as if it was paidequally throughout the year.
So all that to say that doing alot of withholding at the end
of the year can help you avoidsome estimated tax penalties.
And the way that you might dothat is you pay yourself a bonus
(21:42):
at the end of the year ofwhatever amount.
It could be anything.
It's your company and youwithhold all of it, even if you
want to.
You don't have to, but you canwithhold the whole thing.
So let's say my normal salaryis I don't know $10,000 a month
and in December I give myself anextra $10,000 salary or check
as a bonus, and of course, therewill be some payroll taxes.
(22:07):
But after the payroll taxes aretaken out, I withhold all the
rest, so I actually don't getany of that money.
All of the rest of thatdifference goes to the IRS and
that's going to be like what?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
$9,235 or something like that I have no idea, sure.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
So that's extra withholding and it's treated as
if it was paid equallythroughout the year, unlike an
estimated payment, which wouldbe treated as if you made it in
December and then you couldstill have some penalties and
interest on that.
So that's a really good time ofthe year to do that, to catch
up on any taxes that maybe youdidn't pay.
But you have the money to paynow and it could really save you
(22:41):
on penalties in the future.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, it's a great way to avoid penalties and we've
done it before.
Where we're like, oh we reallyneed to add an extra $5,000.
And we just do it at the lastpaycheck of the year gets us
caught up and we don't have anypenalties.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
So just remember, it's really only worth it if you
needed to increase your salaryanyway, because maybe it was a
little low for S-corp standards,for what somebody in your field
makes.
Because you will be increasingyour payroll taxes by, you know,
15.3% of whatever your bonus isand the penalties that you're
avoiding you know they may ormay not be higher than that, so
(23:16):
it's good to weigh those againstit.
At least you know.
Calculate it both ways and seewhat is that additional payroll
tax, what's the estimated taxpenalties that you're saving,
and it may or may not be worthit, but it's just something to
consider.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
And this last number, nine, is basically on that same
thought is making sure that youmake that last quarter
estimated tax payment, which isdue January 15th.
So that's the last one for thisyear, and then you'll be all
set.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, and there's a reason why it's the last one,
because all of those otherthings need to be done first.
You need to have a projection,or you can't know what your
estimated quarterly tax paymentneeds to be.
And you need to have all theother things done so that you
can get the projection.
And you need to know all theways that you're going to save
money through retirement,through buying assets, and you
(24:04):
need to know what you're goingto do with our little
withholding trick.
That was number eight, becauseyou might not need to make an
estimated tax payment at all.
But after you do all that, ifyou're still going to owe, then
this is the time.
Pay it by January 15th, if youcan, and then you're good to go.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Exactly.
Do all of these things and thenadjust accordingly.
But there is ourall-encompassing list for
end-of-the-year organization forbusiness owners.
It's what we will be doing andit's what we will be sharing
with our clients to do, andhopefully you listen to this and
you get it done quickly andyou're not playing catch-up in
January, hopefully so.
(24:39):
Until next time.
Thank you so much for listeningto what your CPA Wants you To
Know.
Podcast of a tax professional.
If you are somebody that typically does Christmas
bonuses or year-end bonuses foryour employees, you need to know
about what that's going to be.
It's going to make your taxprojection much more accurate,
because we usually look at thesalaries of every month and
that's part of our taxprojection.
But if in December the salariesare going to be much higher,
well then your profit's going tobe lower and you won't have
(00:20):
quite as much tax, so we need tofactor that in.
You won't have quite as muchtax, so we need to factor that
in.
Welcome to what your CPA Wantsyou To Know.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Tax and accounting help can be expensive, so we've
created this podcast to helpguide you through it all and
make you feel like you have aCPA in your back pocket.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I'm Carson Sands.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And I'm Taryn Sands.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
CPA in your back pocket.
I'm Carson Sands and I'm TarynSands.
I'm a CPA with over 10 years ofexperience helping people start
and grow their businesses.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And I'm an MBA with a specialization in marketing and
entrepreneurship.
Taxes suck and we want to makesure you don't pay more than
your fair share.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
We're here to share everything your CPA wants you to
know in a fun and easy tounderstand way.
Let's get started.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Let's do it Today.
We are going to help you getorganized for the end of the tax
year.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Just what you always wanted to do with your time.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Just what you always wanted to do with your time.
So exciting, I know, but ifyou're a business owner, you
know how many things are on yourlist for the end of the year,
but then ramping into January,If you get a head start on it,
not only will you feel so muchbetter, but your accountant
might give you a gold star.
That's true.
We do give out gold stars toanyone that is ready to go in
(01:45):
January so we can file their taxreturn, because we need to get
on top of it.
We got to start in January.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Alexa add gold stars to my Amazon shopping list.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
If you are a client and you're listening, please get
us your stuff as soon aspossible, because we have a lot
of returns on the list.
It's so nice to get started inJanuary and it's very possible
for business tax returns if youdo everything that we share
today.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, and if you have a refund coming, then the
sooner you file, the fasteryou'll get it, and if you're
going to owe, the sooner youfile, the longer you have to
make plans to make that payment,because it's due April 15th.
So if you have three months tofigure that out, that's very
helpful.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And did you know that most people aren't aware that
they do have to pay their taxesby April 15th, even though, even
if they file an extensionbecause I pulled everyone and
most people don't know that?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Which everyone's like .
But how do we know how much topay?
I'm like you don't, you have toguess, so it's better to fall
on time.
Now, some people they don'thave a choice.
They have to extend fordifferent reasons and we can
always come up with an estimatefor you.
In that case, we do it all thetime.
But it's better to fall on timeif you can, because then you
know exactly how much to pay.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, and as a business owner Like there's not
going to be things we're waitingon specifically like a K-1 or
something like that it's bestjust to get it done with,
because you know there's all ofthese things you have to start
doing for the next year, and soto get the previous year wrapped
up is really important, becausethen you get just bombarded
with all this other crap youhave to do as a business owner.
(03:19):
So the best thing to do is tryto focus on it now, get
everything wrapped up and knockit out in January.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So, the very first thing, we just set down a mail
list of all the things that wedo and we recommend that our
clients do, and this is justgetting you organized for the
end of the year so that you cando all the filings and you don't
miss anything.
And the first thing on our listis to finish your bookkeeping
and reconcile.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
There's so many reasons why that's number one
important and very first thingyou need to do.
First of all, as you get intotax season in February and March
and start discovering issues inyour books, then it's going to
be really difficult for youraccountant to take time to fix
that.
But at this time of the year wehave so much more time
available to fix any problemsthat come up like that.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
We're happy to help with bookkeeping now.
We do not want you to beconfused in March or April
saying, oh, these numbers don'tlook right, I have no idea.
And then we have to go diggingthrough to see what happened.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Well, no, then we have to file an extension.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah because we just have to say I'm sorry, we cannot
deal with bookkeeping issuesright now.
We have to extend you and do itin the summer, now.
So if you're listening rightnow and you're thinking, oh yeah
, like I know, there's a fewissues in my QuickBooks and I
need to get that fixed so that Ican get my numbers together, do
it now.
Now is your sign to book thatappointment or get with your
(04:38):
bookkeeper so that you get thatdone now.
All bookkeeping issues, numberone step.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
And that means categorize and reconcile both.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Okay, explain what categorizing is and explain what
reconciling is, because mostpeople, when they say they're
doing their bookkeeping, arecategorizing but they're not
reconciling.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Okay, so categorizing if you're in, let's say,
quickbooks, you just go down thelist of transactions that come
in from your bank statement, orthey come in from your bank auto
flow and you just say, allright, that was Bucky's, that
was fuel expense, this was, youknow, walmart, that was supplies
.
You just go down the list andyou categorize those into the
(05:15):
right expense account.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And you do all of them until there's none in
QuickBooks and you're like, oh,I'm good to go.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
But what's the next part of it?
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Then you reconcile.
There is a feature inQuickBooks or any accounting
software where you actually goin and you get the bank
statement from your onlinebanking and you get the ending
balance for each month and youput that into QuickBooks and
then QuickBooks will help you dothat reconciliation.
It will make sure that all ofthe transactions that came into
(05:42):
QuickBooks, plus whatever thebeginning bank balance was,
matches what the ending bankbalance is, and all that does is
really make sure that everytransaction actually came
through, because technicalglitches happen all the time and
if you don't reconcile, youwould never notice.
If you're missing three days ofdata from your bank account and
I promise it happens a lot butif you do a bank reconciliation,
(06:04):
you'll know very quickly hey,something's wrong, it doesn't
match, I'm probably missing somedata.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
And sometimes duplicate transactions pull in.
There's a lot of issues andQuickBooks does get disconnected
more times than we would like.
So if you're using QuickBooks,absolutely make sure you're
reconciling.
So you want to make sure you'vereconciled all the way through
October, right now, and thenmake sure you finish it up for
the end of the year.
But if you are using some othersoftware, like Carson said,
(06:32):
they should have that capability.
But if you're using aspreadsheet, you can still do
the same thing.
What you would want to do isjust make sure that the income
for that month matches yourdeposits on your bank statements
and the money and your expensesmatch.
So you can still do thosedouble checks.
That's what reconciling does,is it makes sure that your
numbers are correct.
(06:52):
So you can still do that ifyou're not using QuickBooks.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
And it's a really good idea.
So this kind of goes along withthe bookkeeping.
But another thing you should doearly on is make sure this is
step two right, yes, we're goingto step two.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Okay, step two.
This has to be actionable stepsfor all the listeners.
Oh, actionable, step number two.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Number two Is gather up all your asset purchase
documentation and either addthat into your bookkeeping
whether it's a spreadsheet or asoftware like QuickBooks or get
it to your accountant so thatthey can do it for you.
Now, a lot of people they dothe day-to-day bookkeeping, but
when it comes to a largepurchase, like a vehicle or some
heavy equipment, it's nottreated the exact same way as
(07:32):
just buying office supplies is,and so you might need a little
help with that.
This is a great time of theyear to get that done and make
sure that it's added into yourbookkeeping software so that
it's being accounted forproperly.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
And for example, just because that was kind of
accounting, just if you bought acar and you have that, you know
two pages that shows what youbought, the date you bought it,
how much it was all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Any trade-ins?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, that's what we're going to need to be able
to add that to your QuickBooks,for example.
Or if you bought a trailer,anything like that, any large
purchases over $2,500, we needto add that into your
bookkeeping.
So now is the time to get allthat paperwork together if you
don't have it nice and organizedso that that is included in
(08:18):
your books.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And the reason that's so often not included is that,
unlike office supplies, forexample, which you spent $200 on
office supplies that comes infrom the bank, you categorize it
in QuickBooks.
It's easy.
Well, usually when you go buy acar, you don't just write a
check for $60,000.
So there's no $60,000transaction coming through the
bank, but you still have a$60,000 expense.
(08:40):
It's just that you financed itor you had some trade in or
something like that.
We want to make sure you getcredit for that deduction and
you're not going to, unless ifyou somehow adjust that into
your books properly, becauseyou're not going to see that
$60,000 line item come acrossyour bank account.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Exactly, and you want to make sure that you are
taking depreciation to accountwhen you're making sure that
you've paid in enough taxes andthat depreciation isn't going to
be on your books.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
So that brings us to the reason why the assets and
getting your books caught upstep one and two are so
important is because of stepthree.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Are you ready to feel confident with your personal
finances?
Have you planned your retirementsavings or looked into life
insurance for you and yourfamily?
We meet with clients all thetime to talk about their
financial goals and theirpersonal finances, and we kept
getting the same questions overand over again.
For that reason, we compiledeverything that we want you to
(09:45):
know into a workbook.
In the personal financeworkbook, we help you focus on
your short and long-termfinancial goals and create a
plan to stick to them.
We walk you through the advicethat we give on budgeting,
paying down debt, building upyour savings for those
unexpected events, calculatingwhat you should be saving for
(10:05):
monthly retirement based on yourgoals, getting life insurance
to protect your family, and youget one month of email support
from us and monthly financialtemplates to help you use and
track your progress all yearlong.
This workbook is priced at $37,which is so much cheaper than
sitting down with your CPA, andit has everything we want you to
(10:27):
know in there.
If you're interested inchecking it out and ready to
meet your financial goals, checkthe show notes for the link to
purchase.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Step three is to get a tax projection.
You can't get a tax projectionunless if you've done steps one
and two, or you can, but itwon't be worth anything because-
.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
We won't do one.
We won't do a tax projection ifyour books aren't together and
you don't have your assets to us.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Because it won't mean anything, because the data
won't be accurate.
But if you have everything upthrough October in your
bookkeeping software and youhave all of your assets added in
, we're going to have a reallygood picture of what your profit
for the year should look like.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And in case anyone doesn't know what is a tax
projection.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
A tax projection is just where we take the income
and expenses that you have forthe year so far and we use an
estimate of what your income andexpenses will be for the rest
of the year to kind of make aguess of what your total income
and your total taxes will be forthis tax year.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
And we'll see what you've already paid in, and then
that will give us a really goodestimate whether you are going
to owe a lot or you did a goodjob of estimating, or what you
need to do so that there are nosurprises whenever you have to
file your tax return in April.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
That's right.
It can really save you a lot inpenalties for not getting paid
in on time.
It can also make sure you setaside some money so you don't
have that heartache of oh Ispent all my money and now I
still owe taxes.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, I mean.
A lot of times we might do aprojection and we're like, okay,
you're going to owe $30,000.
And someone's like, oh, wow,you know I'm surprised, I didn't
even realize that I had madethat much money.
But yeah, you're right and atthe very least, that's a bad
feeling.
But you do have a few months toplan for that, instead of it
being, you know, april 1st andus telling you that you owe
(12:16):
thirty thousand dollars in 15days.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Right.
So that's the tax projectionand that's step number three.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
And you can do, and should do, a tax projection with
your CPA at least once a yearat this time Now you could also,
if you're really good at it andyou've been in business a long
time, you could just do a taxprojection yourself and just
make sure you've set aside acertain amount of percentage and
whatever.
I don't think a lot of peopleare very good at that, but some
(12:49):
business owners can do that.
Either way, you should beestimating how much in taxes
you're going to owe and makesure you've either set aside
that or paid in what you shouldpay in.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Right and Taryn's right.
I mean, you know you might notbe able to get as accurate as us
on things, but if you maybeyou're not a client of ours and
your CPA doesn't do this, or youdon't even use a CPA or
whatever it is If your businessdoesn't change that much from
year to year, you might be ableto just easily look and say all
right, we made $20,000 more thanlast year.
That's a 10% increase.
(13:15):
This was what my tax was lastyear.
I probably owe about 10% moreand that's going to get you
pretty close.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, I think it's a good thing to do for small
businesses like sole proprietors, who are very comfortable with
what they've been paying intaxes every year and what their
general profit is.
So totally can be done.
This is just a great time ofthe year that you need to look
at it and make sure there's nosurprises.
So that was step three.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Right, right, okay, now step four Steps four, five
and six all kind of go alongwith step three, so I'm just
going to list them real quickand then I'll go into more
detail on each one.
Step four gather up ideas forpotential purchases.
So these are large assetpurchases that you haven't made
yet but you're considering Makea plan for year-end bonuses.
(14:00):
If you are somebody thattypically does Christmas bonuses
or year-end bonuses for youremployees, you need to know
about what that's going to be.
It's going to make your taxprojection much more accurate,
because we usually look at thesalaries of every month and
that's part of our taxprojection.
But if in December the salariesare going to be much higher,
well then your profit's going tobe lower and you won't have
(14:21):
quite as much tax.
So we need to factor that in.
And then number six retirementoptions.
Whether that's contributing toyour employee's retirement as a
nice little bonus or whetheryou're a sole proprietor and
you're just going to set asidemoney in your own retirement
account.
That will factor in to how muchyou owe in taxes and that needs
to be factored into a taxprojection.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
And all of this is basically the tax planning part
of the projection.
So not only will a projectiontell you like this is kind of
where you stand, but it is doneat a time where you still have
enough time left for the year todo something different.
If you do want to reduce yourtaxes, if you're going okay,
this is what we've been thinking, and you've been needing to
(15:05):
make a purchase, this is a goodtime to do it.
It would help lower your taxes.
But basically it's a time tostart thinking outside of the
box Is just to save on taxes.
It's silly.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You know you're going to save $24, but you're going
to spend a hundred to do it andjust to have something that sits
there and doesn't get used anddepreciates probably.
(15:34):
But if, let's say, you'rethinking about buying a vehicle
anyway, you need a new one.
You were going to get it inJanuary or February, but hey,
the taxes are going to be higherthan this year, than I was
thinking they would be, and weneed this new truck anyway, and
there's always really good dealsat the end of the year on
vehicles.
So I'm just going to go aheadand buy it in December and that
will offset some taxes for thisyear.
(15:55):
You know, that's something thatyou could do and a lot of times
this would surprise you.
But people have an idea thatthere's some things they want to
buy, but they have no idea whatthe cost of these things are.
So maybe, before your taxprojection, gather up some ideas
of, okay, this truck costs thatmuch or that equipment costs
this much, so that we canproperly factor that into the
(16:16):
tax projection.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
And sometimes this surprises people because they're
telling us, oh, in January orFebruary we're thinking of
buying a new van for thebusiness and this is how much
it's going to be.
And we're like, really, it'sbest that you buy it before the
year, before the end of the year, and that will help you with
your taxes, and that's justsomething that they didn't think
of.
So this is a good time toreview all of those and, like
(16:37):
Carson said, if you're thinking,oh, we really need a new
trailer, that might be somethingwe want to purchase, at least
look into how much they would beor how much you would be
spending on that item, so youcan do a tax projection.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
The reason.
I think a lot of times thatpeople aren't aware, because
some people might think thatsounds surprising, that they
want to buy these assets andthey don't know what it is.
But you know, a lot of timesyou have, let's say, the husband
does a certain job and the wifeis doing all the bookkeeping
and the things like that, andthen he's like, oh, we want to
buy this, we want to buy that,we want to buy that, and then
she's not really aware of howmuch those things cost.
(17:12):
He has an idea in his head, orvice versa.
This does happen a lot wherethe person that's operating the
business and the person that'sdoing the financial side are not
often the same person.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yeah, that happens all the time and I think if it's
something you've neverpurchased, you have no idea.
It could be $10,000 or $30,000.
You have no idea.
So a little research if it'ssomething that you're already
thinking of purchasing is muchneeded before you do your
projection.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And October and November are a great time to do
that, because people close inDecember.
It's really hard to get stuff.
So I'm not saying you can't gobuy something in December, but
already knowing what you want,at least by December, is a
really good idea.
Or else you could end up notgetting what you need until the
next year and then it's too lateto help you for taxes.
So just going back down thelist, I don't think we need a
(17:59):
lot more detail on number fiveand six, the uh, the yearend
bonuses and the retirementoptions, I think I kind of
already explained how that worksand why you need to have an
idea of what you might do onthat for tax projection purposes
.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And just getting organized.
It's the time for year-endbonuses.
Figure out what they're goingto be, figure out when you're
going to send them out.
All of that that's just somepart of your job as a business
owner, and making sure that getsdone should be on your list.
So number six was theretirement options looking into
if you're going to do that ornot, what you're going to do
there.
Number seven is gettingorganized to send out W-2s and
(18:34):
1099s.
So those aren't due untilJanuary.
But there actually is a lot todo with all of that, and now is
a good time to make sure thatyou have all your paperwork
together so that you can sendthose out.
And where we see people justkind of miss the mark on this is
where they're hiringcontractors and they want to go
ahead and send out their 1099,but they don't have their
(18:56):
information.
So that happens a lot.
If that's you you're like Ihired somebody and I didn't get
them to fill out the paperworkthen now is the time to start
tracking them down.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
And if you've been listening to our podcast, you
know that we hope that you'vealready got a W-9 filled out,
which is where you get theinformation for 1099s before
anybody did any work for you.
That's the best time.
You have the most leverage.
You're like they really wantthe work, they really want the
job, they want to get paid.
So all they have to do is fillout this paperwork and that's
(19:27):
great.
Now, if they've done the joband they're not doing any more
work for you and six monthslater you're asking them to fill
out this paperwork, they don'treally have a lot of incentives
to do it.
Whether it's just because it'sjust an extra step and they're
being lazy, or whether it'sbecause they don't want it to 99
because they weren't planningto pay taxes.
Whatever the reasoning is, youhave so much more leverage to
get that information in thebeginning.
(19:48):
But if you don't have it, thennow's the time.
Ask for those W-9s.
Start sending emails now sothat you don't get caught up and
miss the deadline in January.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
And that happens so much.
I do the majority of the 1099filings for our clients.
So they'd say here's all mycontractors and, in case we
didn't mention this, it's anyoneyou paid over $600 for in the
year that did contract work foryou.
You have to send a 1099 out forthem, and so they'll give me
their list.
And, lo and behold, there'smultiple people that they did
(20:20):
not get a W-9 for.
So then we're stuck trying toget everybody's information in
January, and we've been late ona lot of them because they
didn't have it.
So a little reminder to do thatright now.
Yeah, now's the time.
All right, moving on to numbereight.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
This one only applies to our S-corp owners, so if
you're not an S-corp owner yet,then you might be soon, so this
could still be important.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And it's still good information to know because, I
mean, I think I only learnedthis a couple of years ago and I
was like, wow, I actuallydidn't know that.
That's awesome, so explain whatit is and we use it and I think
a lot of people don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
This is doing additional payroll or a bonus
for yourself at the end of theyear.
This is very different fromyear-end bonuses for your
employees and planning for that,because what happens is you
have to pay in estimatedpayments quarterly through the
year or you get penalized if youhave business income.
Well, if you have an S-corp,you know that you have to be on
(21:20):
salary through your own companyand so you have a W-2 with
withholding.
Well, any withholding you have,no matter when it's paid in, is
treated as if it was paidequally throughout the year.
So all that to say that doing alot of withholding at the end
of the year can help you avoidsome estimated tax penalties.
And the way that you might dothat is you pay yourself a bonus
(21:42):
at the end of the year ofwhatever amount.
It could be anything.
It's your company and youwithhold all of it, even if you
want to.
You don't have to, but you canwithhold the whole thing.
So let's say my normal salaryis I don't know $10,000 a month
and in December I give myself anextra $10,000 salary or check
as a bonus, and of course, therewill be some payroll taxes.
(22:07):
But after the payroll taxes aretaken out, I withhold all the
rest, so I actually don't getany of that money.
All of the rest of thatdifference goes to the IRS and
that's going to be like what?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
$9,235 or something like that I have no idea, sure.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
So that's extra withholding and it's treated as
if it was paid equallythroughout the year, unlike an
estimated payment, which wouldbe treated as if you made it in
December and then you couldstill have some penalties and
interest on that.
So that's a really good time ofthe year to do that, to catch
up on any taxes that maybe youdidn't pay.
But you have the money to paynow and it could really save you
(22:41):
on penalties in the future.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, it's a great way to avoid penalties and we've
done it before.
Where we're like, oh we reallyneed to add an extra $5,000.
And we just do it at the lastpaycheck of the year gets us
caught up and we don't have anypenalties.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
So just remember, it's really only worth it if you
needed to increase your salaryanyway, because maybe it was a
little low for S-corp standards,for what somebody in your field
makes.
Because you will be increasingyour payroll taxes by, you know,
15.3% of whatever your bonus isand the penalties that you're
avoiding you know they may ormay not be higher than that, so
(23:16):
it's good to weigh those againstit.
At least you know.
Calculate it both ways and seewhat is that additional payroll
tax, what's the estimated taxpenalties that you're saving,
and it may or may not be worthit, but it's just something to
consider.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
And this last number, nine, is basically on that same
thought is making sure that youmake that last quarter
estimated tax payment, which isdue January 15th.
So that's the last one for thisyear, and then you'll be all
set.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, and there's a reason why it's the last one,
because all of those otherthings need to be done first.
You need to have a projection,or you can't know what your
estimated quarterly tax paymentneeds to be.
And you need to have all theother things done so that you
can get the projection.
And you need to know all theways that you're going to save
money through retirement,through buying assets, and you
(24:04):
need to know what you're goingto do with our little
withholding trick.
That was number eight, becauseyou might not need to make an
estimated tax payment at all.
But after you do all that, ifyou're still going to owe, then
this is the time.
Pay it by January 15th, if youcan, and then you're good to go.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Exactly.
Do all of these things and thenadjust accordingly.
But there is ourall-encompassing list for
end-of-the-year organization forbusiness owners.
It's what we will be doing andit's what we will be sharing
with our clients to do, andhopefully you listen to this and
you get it done quickly andyou're not playing catch-up in
January, hopefully so.
(24:39):
Until next time.
Thank you so much for listeningto what your CPA Wants you To
Know.
Podcast of a tax professional.
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