Episode 212: The Tax Season Playbook - Your Guide to Organizing and Filing Your Taxes

On today's episode of the Unf*ck Your Biz podcast I share the steps you need for getting ready to file taxes and introduce my new offer, the Tax Season Playbook.

It’s time to start getting ready for tax season! Like it or not, April will be here before we know it and there are a few steps to help us get prepared to file, even if you plan to hire a tax preparer. The first step is to organize. Gather all your tax documents - I recommend keeping an envelope by your door so as soon as you come in from getting the mail, you can file any tax info you received. 

The next step is your bookkeeping. Make sure it is up-to-date, you have all your income and expenses added up, and that your profit and loss statement is accurate for the year. If you haven’t been keeping up with your books or didn’t keep any, now is the time to put that together. I have a bookkeeping template available here. If you have a bookkeeper, you can skip to the next step. 

Note that in the episode, when I talk about using January 1st, 2022  to December 31st, 2022, I mean to say 2021. You use your 2021 books from January 1st to December 31st, 2021 to file your 2021 taxes. Though make note, if you haven’t already, now is absolutely the time to start getting your 2022 books in order so you are ready to go come next year to file your 2022 taxes. 

The final step is to file your taxes. Even if you plan to go to a tax preparer, you will need to have completed the first two steps so that they can file your tax forms and use your income and expense information from your books. If you have a partnership or an S Corp you will need to hire a tax preparer as many self-filing software are not equipped for partnership and S Corp-related information. 

I do not recommend filing your taxes until March. 1099s were required to be sent out by the end of January but by the time they get mailed to you, potentially lost in the mail, or sent late (which will result in a fine if you are the business owner who is sending them late), I recommend not filing your taxes until March. If you file earlier and then get a tax form sent to you after filing, you will have to pay to physically mail your updated taxes and it’s a whole step you can avoid by waiting. Waiting, and being ready are two different things though and you can be ready to file before actually filing. 

To get help with these steps and have me walk you through filing your taxes, check out the Tax Season Playbook, available here. This three-week program will officially launch on Monday, February 14th. At the end of the Tax Season Playbook, I will host a virtual tax filing party where you can ask questions and we can all file our taxes together. 

There will be two options available to purchase the Tax Season Playbook. You can buy the Tax Season Playbook on its own for $50, or you can buy it as part of Renee Dalo’s “Profitable Planner Bundle” for $97 which launches on Valentine’s Day and includes up to 30 other courses from wedding professionals teaching on how to run a wedding business, and non-wedding related topics such as Canva, social media management, etc.