Planning for 2016 Tax Day

You check the forms one last time, wipe the sweat from your brow and hit the ‘submit’ button. If all goes well, the Internal Revenue Service will only take a cursory glance at your return before processing it. You’ve taken care of your taxes for one more year. 

“Glad that’s over with,” you say to yourself. 

The next tax year will be here sooner than you think. In many cases, by the time you’ve filed one year, you’re already nearly a third of the way into the next one. It doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom though. With a little proper planning, you can make filing your taxes next year a smooth and simple process. Here are some tips to help you get started:

Stay Organized.  This is especially important if you’re running a small business. Unlike your personal taxes, most of the items you buy for your business are deductible. Keep track of what you buy, when you bought it and why. Organize it by categories, so you know, for example, exactly how much you spent on advertising versus supplies. From there, it’s fairly simple to transfer that information right to your tax return.

Don’t Wait.  It’s a lot easier to find the necessary paperwork when it’s recorded right after you make a transaction than it is to dig through months-old credit card and bank statements. This type of document sleuthing can cost you countless hours.

Take advantage of your resources.  If you’ve visited a professional tax office in the last few years, chances are they might have sent you a tax organizer. Use it. It will give you a good idea of the type of information the tax professional needs, and how they’d ideally like to have it organized. Even if you’re the do-it-yourself type, you can still use the form as a template. 

Let the computer do the work.  There are a horde of business office suites out there, many of them reasonably priced and surprisingly simple to use. Most of the better ones come with built-in or online support to help you get started.  If you’re looking to cut costs to the bare minimum, consider using a free-source spread sheet program such as Open Office Calc. 

Taxes are a fact of life, but they don’t have to be a source of yearly misery. Get organized long before you file and save the gray hairs for someone else.