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 the home.
This year, I am getting a fairly early start on preparing my taxes. With my baby’s due date of April 14 so close to the tax filing deadline, there is no way that I can leave anything to chance. You know how babies are – they arrive when they feel like it, regardless of when their estimated due date is. I do my taxes online with Turbo Tax, and one thing that I love about that is that I can go through the tax preparation program a little at a time. If I come to a question where I need more information, I can choose to skip it and return to it later or go get the information and enter it. When I sign out of a work session, my answers are all saved in a secure system for when I return to work on the forms some more. Since I have home – based businesses, I am not eligible to use the free edition of the program. I use their Home and Business Edition. I do feel that the fee for filing is reasonable, and during the two years that I have used the program to file my taxes I have been happy with the results.
If this is the first year that you will be filing taxes for your home – based business and you want to use an online product like Turbo Tax, I would suggest that you take a virtual “tour” of a few of the different brands of online tax preparation programs before deciding which one to use. The user interfaces vary and some people may feel like one product appeals to them more than the others. Personally, I find the Turbo Tax Home and Business Edition to be very intuitive and easy to use.
As is the case any time that I talk about a product or service, I must mention that Turbo Tax has not given me anything of value in exchange for mentioning their product here. Also, filing income taxes is serious stuff. I can use a do – it – yourself online tax preparation program because the accounting that is associated with my two home – based businesses is very simple. If it were more complex, I would enlist the help of a professional. Many home – based professionals entrust not only their tax preparation to a certified professional but the year long maintenance of their books and financial records as well. In fact, many tax professionals and small business accountants are home – based professionals themselves, so if you are considering going that route why not choose to purchase those services from a fellow home – based professional.
Photo by ronnieb on morguefile.com.