Search Results for: blog home business taxes

Tax Time: Home Business Money Savers

Now that you know how to save money on your taxes by deducting job-hunting expenses, let’s talk home businesses. According to the IRS, you may be able to save big bucks by writing off expenses related to what Uncle Sam refers to as the “business use of your home.” If you work out of your home–regardless of whether you rent or own–you may qualify for the deduction. The IRS defines a “home” as a house, condo, apartment, and mobile home, basically, any place that includes an area where you cook and sleep. A home office can be as large as … Continue reading →

It’s Time to Think About Taxes

It is the time of year when home – based professionals have yet another administrative responsibility on their plates in addition to doing the work of their home – based businesses and running the day to day operations of those businesses. Preparing and filing your income tax returns is a very important thing, and should not be left until the last minute. When you have one or more home – based businesses, there is more to doing your taxes than simply pulling together your W2’s and a few other things like you may have done when you worked outside of … Continue reading →

One Way to Make 2012 a Good Year for Your Business

With the New Year fast approaching and the fresh start that it brings almost here, your mind may be full of ideas for improving your home – based business. One suggestion that I have for making 2012 a better year for your home –based business is to evaluate and improve your bookkeeping practices. If you just said to yourself “Bookkeeping practices? What bookkeeping practices?” than this is definitely something that it is important for you to do. While accounting and bookkeeping are normally considered part of the administrative duties that a home – based professional must make time for as … Continue reading →

Downsides of a Home-Based Business

I’m always writing about the benefits and the blessings of having a home-based business. However, the truth is that it isn’t for everyone. So now I am going to take a different approach, in an effort to prevent someone from making a huge mistake. The decision to start up a home-based business is not one that should be taken lightly. Once you dive in, there may be no going back before huge mistakes are made. So I feel it’s only right that I share some of the downsides to this. The first downside is the financial investment you must make. … Continue reading →

Another Step Towards Opening Your Home Based Business

After thinking a bit about the suggestions that I wrote about yesterday, I realized that that I should talk a little bit about the importance of doing these smaller steps close enough together so that you can build momentum that will carry you through those crazy initial days, weeks, and months after you are open for business. I would suggest that you complete one of the steps each day, or every other day. Of course, you may need to tailor that suggestion a little to your schedule but it is important that you not spread them out too much because … Continue reading →

Top 10 Tips for a Home Business

Whether you are thinking of just starting a home business or you are already running one, these top 10 home business tips can help. Tip number 1 is to put the word “no” into your vocabulary. This word can easily be eliminated when you are starting up a home business because you want to take advantage of every opportunity you can. When I first started my writing career, I jumped at everything that came my way. But even after I established myself as a writer, I still kept taking on additional things. Giving of some of those things was one … Continue reading →

The Small Business Administration is a Great Resource

One very important task that you must complete when you are starting your own home-based business is a business plan. There are many books available about writing business plans, as well as templates that you can buy where you fill in the elements of your business plan. That’s great and all, but chances are that you must be as thrifty as you can during the startup phase of your home-based business. The good news is that there are business planning resources that you can access for free. The United States Small Business Administration has a great outline of what you … Continue reading →

Did You Do Your Own Taxes?

I’ve been married for fifteen years. In the course of that time, we’ve done our own taxes every year but one, the year my dad worked for Jackson Hewitt. Each April, we are miserable, cranky, on edge, snappish, and generally unpleasant to be around. Taxes will do that to a person. This year, my husband made a deal with a man in our neighborhood. He traded time doing the man’s genealogy for the man’s time doing our taxes. I can’t even tell you how wonderful it was to hand all our documents over to someone else and let him take … Continue reading →

Think Fast – Did You File Your Taxes Yet?

As if your home-based business does not keep you busy enough, the month of April brings with it more than just those pesky rain (or snow) showers. That’s right, its tax season, and the deadline for filing your tax return is (gasp!) tomorrow. It is easy to understand why home-based professionals may procrastinate a little bit when it comes to filling out all of that tax paperwork. There is a lot of information that you must gather in order to prepare your tax forms, and you want to be sure that you include all of the necessary information and don’t … Continue reading →

Setting Up a Home Office

When I first started working from home, I did it from my dining room table. But when my writing career took off and I eventually was able to work full-time from home, I quickly realized this wasn’t going to work. So I began to build my home office. Well let me take that back…my husband actually built the room that is now my office. I was then able to add things such as my desk, chair, printer and a number of other supplies. If you are looking to set up a home office there are some important things you should … Continue reading →