Transcript 111 – Andrea Yahr on Tax Prep Tips and FAQs for 2023

Transcript: 111 – Andrea Yahr on Tax Prep Tips and FAQs for 2023

Transcript for 111 – Andrea Yahr on Tax Prep Tips and FAQs for 2023

[00:00:00] Andrea Miller: Hey, it’s Andrea with Music Studio Startup, the podcast about the business of teaching music. Learn from the startup stories of music teachers who are doing incredible things with their studios. Be inspired by creating musicians who are branching out and thriving as entrepreneurs. Be empowered by the insights of experts who will help you grow your own studio.

Let’s get started.

2022 has officially come to a close. With the turn of the calendar, many of us are also closing the fiscal years for our businesses and wrapping up our bookkeeping for the year in anticipation of the tax season ahead. I’m a huge fan of a low stress tax season, and the way to accomplish this is to get started early and tackle one step at a time, which is why I invited back Andrea Yaar a certified tax preparer to get us going.

Andrea’s first appearance on the Music Studio Startup podcast was back in episode 012 when she talked about business structures and their tax implications. Today, Andrea’s back to talk about some tax basics for self-employed music teacher, how to get a smooth start to the filing season even if you feel behind already, and we also talk about some short and long-term strategies to consider to lower your overall tax bill. Here’s my conversation with Andrea. Hi Andrea. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for being here today. Can you introduce yourself and tell us what you do?

 

[00:01:35] Andrea Yahr: My name is Andrea Yahr and I own Yahr Income Tax LLC. We do bookkeeping and payroll and taxes for small businesses and individuals and we love our self-employed people.

 

[00:01:50] Andrea Miller: Excellent. You’re such a great fit for Music Studio Startup because obviously we do too. And thank you for being here. I know this is such a busy time of year for tax professionals, so I really appreciate you taking the time to get us set up for doing taxes smoothly this year.

So I thought maybe we could start with just some general tax information. What are the minimum income thresholds for when you need to start filing taxes?

 

[00:02:15] Andrea Yahr: So 12,950 is the minimum income threshold. Basically, it’s the standard deduction rate unless you have special circumstances like you’re self-employed.

So you have self-employment taxes that also need to be taken into account. So with the self-employed people, anytime you have $400 or more of income, that’s going to trigger self-employment taxes and the need to file a tax return.

 

[00:02:45] Andrea Miller: Okay. So even if you’re not required to pay income taxes, you might still be responsible for self-employment taxes?

 

[00:02:52] Andrea Yahr: Correct.

 

[00:02:53] Andrea Miller: Okay. And that actually leads into my next question, which was a lot of people fall into teaching without even really meaning to, you know, someone just says, Hey, you play piano. Would you teach my child? And you say, sure, you can meet that $400 threshold pretty quickly. So let’s say there’s a teacher who’s earn this money in 2022. Maybe you didn’t expect to, but here they are now looking at their 2022 tax season and they haven’t paid quarterly taxes. They haven’t done anything because they weren’t really anticipating this. What should they be doing now as it’s the new year and they’re getting ready for that tax season?

 

[00:03:28] Andrea Yahr: Sure. So there’s two ways to look at it. If they are just taking on one student and it’s maybe just for a short period of time, it might just be hobby income, so then it’s not subject to self-employment tax, so you don’t have to worry quite as much about your income taxes when that happens. However, if you are intending to make it an actual business, you’re making more money, you’re earning a profit, you intend to earn a profit and grow your business, then we’re looking at our self-employment taxes.

We’re looking at filing a Schedule C with our tax returns and those lovely quarterly estimated payments that we should be doing that, that we don’t always do. But don’t freak out. It’s going to be okay even if you didn’t make the payments. It’s, it’s just fine. You can do a couple things. You can make some payments now if you want to before you file your taxes to offset any penalties and interests that might be due if you know ahead of time.

So if it’s January and you’re like, Ooh, maybe I should send something in, send in that final quarter payment to the IRS, to the state, and offset some of those penalties and interest right away. Or you can wait till you file your taxes. I would suggest filing them as soon as you can. You know, by that April 15th date or before.

And the IRS, they’ll assess late payments, late penalties, interest on your return. But usually those are pretty minimal, depending on how much income you’ve made. They’re not going to get super mad at you. They’re just going to tell you, Hey, you owe us a little bit of extra money. Send it in with your payment.

But then going forward, you’ll just want to do some tax planning, talk to your tax professional, get an idea of what your income and expenses are going to be for that current year that you’re in, and that way you can get those estimated payments set up and you can get back on track right away.

 

[00:05:22] Andrea Miller: Okay, so basically try to get your estimate and make a payment as quickly as possible, even if you’re not ready to file your whole return.

 

[00:05:28] Andrea Yahr: Yes.

 

[00:05:29] Andrea Miller: Okay. And I get this question a lot. If a teacher only accepts cash payments, are those subject to tax reporting?

 

[00:05:36] Andrea Yahr: They are. We highly recommend not accepting cash under the table. That’s just kind of like a little bit of tax evasion if, if we do that. You should include all income received in all forms. So whether it’s a check, a cash, electronic, crypto, it doesn’t really matter. All of those are considered income and should be included in your Schedule C for income received. So create a really good system to track your income and expenses, whether it’s in, in accounting program like QuickBooks or, uh, I know there’s some music studio programs out there that have income and expenses that you can track. Or even, you know, a spreadsheet, something that creates a paper trail and makes you audit proof.

 

[00:06:20] Andrea Miller: I think that’s kind of a relief to teachers sometimes to hear that like, okay, it’s just all the same. It doesn’t matter what form the payment came in, it’s all the same, and it really gives you a better picture into your business’ financial health as well, if you’re not like hiding some income under the table because it’s cash versus a check payment or credit card. Now, how about a business that generated a loss this year? Maybe this is a teacher who’s new and they made a lot of investments in their studio because they had to buy a piano, or they had to sign a lease and pay rent before they had, you know, capacity. So maybe they generated a loss. Does that teacher still have to file?

 

[00:06:56] Andrea Yahr: Yes, they should still be filing. The IRS wants you to show income, profits and losses regardless. They actually keep track of years of losses you have, because they’ll determine if you have three years of losses in a five year period, they’re going to come back to you and say, Hey, you probably have a hobby. Or they may be looking for audits because there’s excessive expenses. For instance, they’ll want to know that. Another reason to keep yourself audit proof and, you know, keep track of all your income and expenses and keep the paper trail going. Yes. So you still want to file your taxes and your schedule C within that 10 40. Take the loss, and overall it may actually help your combined income for your tax liabilities. Because if you take a loss, it does lower your tax liabilities.

 

[00:07:49] Andrea Miller: That’s true. So you would not be paying self-employment taxes because you have a loss. But it can also reduce your personal income taxes. Even for your full whole household, not just yourself.

 

[00:08:01] Andrea Yahr: Yes.

 

[00:08:02] Andrea Miller: Awesome. Yeah. Thank you for that reminder. That’s really valuable. So it’s January now when this episode is releasing, and this is the time of year a lot of teachers start to get anxious because they know that tax prep time is coming. What should we start doing in January to make it a smooth season?

 

[00:08:21] Andrea Yahr: Well, if you haven’t been tracking your income and expenses, I would be pulling those bank statements. I would be doing everything I can to find all the income, find all the expenses, make sure that I’ve got it written down somewhere and ready to go, so that either if you’re self preparing your tax returns, you’re ready, or you can pass it on to your tax professional and they can also then ask you specific questions early on rather than waiting till the last minute. As well as making sure that you know, if you drive your car and you’ve got your business mileage, that’s being tracked because you’re going to have to go back and possibly recreate if you haven’t been tracking it all year long.

And same for home office. If you’ve got a home office or a studio in your home that you need to also deduct, we want to make sure that that is figured out early on. Make sure all your documents are collected and you know, in the case of our business, we ask our clients to Scan their documents and upload them to our portal.

So we have them scanning things in January. Sometimes they even come in before that. They just kind of start sending things all throughout the year. And the earlier you can do that, the better. Having an open conversation with your accountant if you have any questions and aren’t sure what you should be gathering. They would know what’s going on in your financial situation and be able to help you navigate that as well. So all of those things can help with a much smoother tax prep season.

 

[00:09:58] Andrea Miller: Mm-hmm. what are some often missed deductions that self-employed teachers should be paying attention to?

 

[00:10:04] Andrea Yahr: You know, it varies, but I would say the ones I notice the most are the vehicle mileage, like the standard mileage deduction and the home office. And also items that you might split between personal and business use.

So like if you buy computer and use it, sometimes for personal, sometimes for business, a lot of clients aren’t aware that they can take a portion of that expense for their business. You know, it means that you have to track and figure out like what was the business use portion, but those are generally missed because either they don’t want to take the time to do it, or they just aren’t aware that, oh hey, that was business purpose and we need to track that.

 

[00:10:46] Andrea Miller: Yeah. So it’s a percentage, right? Like if you buy a computer and half the time you’re using it for Zoom lessons, and half the time you’re using it for personal, then 50% of that is deductible for your business, right?

 

[00:10:57] Andrea Yahr: Yes, absolutely. .

 

[00:10:58] Andrea Miller: And then can you talk more about the home office expense? I think there’s a lot of, um, reluctance to take that because people have heard that that’s going to trigger an IRS audit.

 

[00:11:08] Andrea Yahr: Absolutely. Home offices are definitely a red flag to the irs. In fact, they created the simplified method to lower that red flag because with the simplified method, you just take a straight $5 per square foot and they limit you on your square footage. It makes tracking not necessary, and it also just limits how much you can take.

You don’t depreciate your home. That’s why I think the IRS has created that. But if you want to really maximize on the home office, you would want to take the actual expense rate. And that is where we need to say, okay, is the home office exclusively and regularly used for the business? You know, you can’t have it be a bedroom and your office for instance.

And it could be an area of a room. So like I know there’s a lot of people that could be in a basement and maybe a portion of that room is a family room, but you’ve got your piano in another section. You know that square footage where your piano and desk might be are going to be the square footage that you would take as exclusively used for business in this instance. You can also take like a storage area. I’ve got some clients that take part of their garage because they store inventory and garage, and then I’ve got some people that have a, just a completely separate structure on their property, and that can also be used. When you do take the actual method you also want to track, again, it’s always about tracking your housing expenses. So that means you know your utilities and your mortgage payment, property taxes and keep a nice spreadsheet of all of that. Keep hard copies or scan to digital copies your receipts and expenses for repairs and maintenance and everything else.

Make yourself audit proof. You want to maximize your deduction, but not be a red flag for the IRS. And if the IRS does choose you to be audited, you want to make sure that you are audit proof and that’s the way to do it.

 

[00:13:09] Andrea Miller: There’s nothing wrong with it, as long as you can prove that it was legit. Okay, so that’s simplified home office deduction. A teacher who like legitimately is using a space for their studio, they’re probably not going to get as high a deduction with that simplified method?

 

[00:13:24] Andrea Yahr: Correct, because you’re not depreciating your home with the simplified method. You’re not taking into account if you had some major repairs in that particular room or the house overall. Like if you had to put a roof on your house and it impacts the home office, you would take a portion of that repair. The simplified method just doesn’t take that into account.

 

[00:13:48] Andrea Miller: it doesn’t reach quite as broadly.

 

[00:13:49] Andrea Yahr: Right. It’s just a flat $5 per square foot up to 300 square feet.

 

[00:13:54] Andrea Miller: Okay. I don’t know if you can answer this generally, but for someone who’s maybe in an apartment, do you think that would be a better method for someone in that situation where they’re not having all those other repairs?

 

[00:14:06] Andrea Yahr: Yes. That is a wonderful option.

 

[00:14:11] Andrea Miller: What are some other things that might raise the likelihood of an IRS audit that someone can, you know, be proactive about avoiding?

[00:14:21] Andrea Yahr: Right. Yes. So the IRS looks at a few different things. They also sometimes just pull names and just do random audits. But the things that they tend to look at are if you take too many deductions. So if you have excessive expenses, excessive losses for multiple years, those are going to be red flags. Large meal travel deductions are also going to be a red flag, especially if you are in an industry where you wouldn’t normally have a lot of meals out or travel a lot. They do look at that. High revenue. If you make over a hundred thousand dollars on your Schedule C, they may target your business or businesses that make this kind of money. Just trying to figure out what’s going on. And the same with low revenue. So if you make too little revenue and you have a lot of expenses, they may say you’re a hobby.

So they, they may do a quick audit on that. Home office deductions, like we talked about, are our red flag, and then 100% business use of a vehicle. That tends to happen because probably for lack of tracking, and then we just take a hundred percent and that is not going to make them happy. They’re going to audit us.

 

[00:15:38] Andrea Miller: So unless you have a van. There’s some people who teach piano out of like tour buses that they’ve outfitted with pianos. That one will probably be an exclusive a hundred percent. Use of business vehicle, but not the traveling teacher who goes to their regular weekend activities outside of teaching at the same car.

 

[00:15:55] Andrea Yahr: Right.

 

[00:15:55] Andrea Miller: Okay. Anything else there with the IRS audits?

 

[00:15:59] Andrea Yahr: Those are kind of the main, main ones that we see. The other one that I notice usually when I’m taking on new clients, rounding. Rounding the expenses to like, A thousand dollars or $500 or the same as the previous year, uh, kind of that same as last year is not okay.

You know, it’s those, those, those round numbers and those same as the previous year also tend to raise a lot of questions and definitely raise a lot of questions. For me, when I’m taking on a client, I’m like, why is that ?

 

[00:16:33] Andrea Miller: Uh huh. Perhaps not good record keeping. Okay. All right. How about as a tax preparer? Do you need those receipt?

 

[00:16:40] Andrea Yahr: We don’t necessarily look at the receipts for the clients. In fact, a lot of times we ask just for a summary of the income and expenses for the year. If something seems out of sorts or high, we may ask for additional information. For instance, if you know your office expenses are thousands of dollars, we might ask well, were there any big purchases in there? Because maybe there’s a fixed asset that needs to be depreciated. And so in that case, for fixed assets, we would be asking for the receipt on that, or more detail of the date and the amount, things like that. But, in general, we don’t necessarily want to see a thousand receipts we just want summaries.

 

[00:17:22] Andrea Miller: Alright, and for listeners who don’t know all the accounting terms, a fixed asset is something like a piano. Like something that’s going to stay in your possession for a long time and has generally a high value versus something like your Zoom subscription where there’s an expense, it’s small, you write it off immediately. Those fixed assets, are generally that expense is taken over time. Would you say that’s a good description?

 

[00:17:46] Andrea Yahr: That is a great description.

 

[00:17:48] Andrea Miller: Okay. So 2022 has ended, but there are still some things we can do to reduce our tax bills for 2022. Can you talk about some of those?

 

[00:17:56] Andrea Yahr: Yeah. The two things that come to mind are making retirement contributions or HSA contributions. You can actually do that for 2022 through April 15th, or tax day. I think it’s actually April 18th this coming year, but you can make those and actually help lower your tax bill. That’s if it’s a traditional IRA not a Roth IRA. Roth IRAs, you can still make the contribution, but it’s not going to lower your tax bill.

 

[00:18:24] Andrea Miller: Okay. And how about, I know a lot of listeners probably have Sep IRAs as well. Would that apply to the Sep ira?

 

[00:18:31] Andrea Yahr: Yes. So the Sep is a little bit different, but for self-employed, yes. And you almost can’t make that step contribution until you know what your net profit is for the business for the year anyway. Or what, at least what the max is that you can make. So if there’s a maximum amount they want to put in, you may have to wait until you get that net profit if you’re a Schedule c.

 

[00:18:55] Andrea Miller: Sure. Okay. and those deadlines you said are the same day as taxes are due. So you can really figure out all your numbers and optimize that as best you can.

 

[00:19:04] Andrea Yahr: Exactly, exactly.

 

[00:19:06] Andrea Miller: On your blog, you have a great article describing the difference between tax preparation and tax planning. Can you explain that?

 

[00:19:14] Andrea Yahr: Yes, so tax preparation is ultimately just us looking back at the previous year, gathering all of your source documents, all your income expenses, anything that could be deductions, credits, and making sure that we can enter all of that information on the tax forms and resulting in that fully complete tax return that’s going to be filed with the IRS and the state telling them, oh, hey, you owe us money, or we owe you money back. Whereas, you know, tax planning is more of a looking forward and making these strategic plans to best lower your tax liabilities. Or in some cases, retirement planning even.

You know, do I put into a Roth or do I put into a traditional, you know because they have different tax attributes to them. So you know, one may help your taxes now where another one’s going to help your taxes many years down the road. So there’s a lot of different things to look at and plan for. So it’s definitely more forward facing and strategic.

 

[00:20:13] Andrea Miller: Mm-hmm. Is there a income threshold where you would suggest people really start being proactive about that? Where it can pay off?

 

[00:20:23] Andrea Yahr: Not necessarily. I think saving on taxes is always a good plan, regardless of what you’re making. Obviously, if you don’t have to file taxes, if you’re making low enough money where you’re, you don’t even hit that filing threshold, it’s probably not a big deal.

 But, um, once you start paying taxes and you have that tax liability, I think tax planning in general is something that you should think about. You know, you don’t have to do it every year necessarily. I’ve got some clients that will just contact us when they’re changing jobs and they’ve got new income to look at, or their business really took off, or their business really is not doing well. So there’s, there’s big changes. Adding family members or maybe college students that are no longer going to be their dependents, you know, we get an array of different clients coming in for different reasons to do tax planning. It doesn’t have to be just like for retirement planning. It can be for just about anything and at any time. So I don’t think it really matters what your income is. It’s, it’s more on just being prepared.

 

[00:21:28] Andrea Miller: Sure, sure. And I imagine for teachers too, maybe if they’re anticipating some business expense that year is when they might also want to really meet with someone in advance to talk about it. Like again, signing that lease to make a big business expansion or purchasing new instruments. Because you can advise someone on whether they should make that purchase before December 31st. after January 1st, right?

 

[00:21:50] Andrea Yahr: Yes. We are actually getting a lot of those requests. November and December have been very busy with doing some annual reviews for clients that we do bookkeeping for, and we get a lot of questions on, should we defer this income, should we make these purchases? There’s just a lot of questions out there, especially for the small business owner.

 

[00:22:12] Andrea Miller: Mm-hmm. Are there any tax changes that we should be expecting in 2023?

 

[00:22:18] Andrea Yahr: The ones we’re seeing the most, um, that pretty much been in the news are in reference to the inflation. And they address that specifically with tax brackets are changing, so the taxable income ranges have been increased.

Standard deductions have also increased. They usually increase every year anyway, but they’ve actually increased quite a bit more. And then the other items, long-term gains, the income thresholds increased, earned income tax credits, the credit has increased. Annual gift exclusions have been increased from 16,000 to 17,000, and the lifetime estate tax exclusion. That has increased. So they’re increasing everything. The one that I thought was most interesting that I hadn’t seen was that flexible savings account contributions, they’re at $3,050 per year is the contribution you can make. But they also have made it. so you can carry over $610 into the next year, which previously it was a use it or lose it, and there was no carryover.

So I find it very interesting that they’re allowing some carryover there. And then the last one I saw was they increased the adoption credit as well.

 

[00:23:32] Andrea Miller: Okay. So for that FSA contribution, the impact to a teacher there would be, it’s like another savings vehicle.

 

[00:23:40] Andrea Yahr: It is. Usually you see them with employers. So if you’re a W2 employee and your employer has flexible savings account or a cafeteria plan that includes a flexible savings account, this is where you would be putting that in. It’s because it’s usually pre-taxed dollars, so you won’t see it on your W2 box one amount, and you then pay for your medical expenses. Or in some cases it could be like your dependent care expenses and usually I, like I said, it was a use it or lose it and now apparently you are going to be able to carry over a little bit to the next year.

 

[00:24:19] Andrea Miller: Okay. And another reason to pursue tax planning because if you have, if you may be self-employed, but if you have a spouse who’s employed, you might have access to some of these other tools as well. So it’s a whole nother game with lots more pieces to play with.

 

[00:24:34] Andrea Yahr: Exactly.

 

[00:24:35] Andrea Miller: How about the QBI deduction or the qualified business income deduction? Can you talk about that? I know that’s been in existence for a few years. We’ve got a couple years left on it. Can you maybe explain it and then talk about what you think future is for that?

 

[00:24:48] Andrea Yahr: Well, the QBI deduction, so qualified business income deduction allows you to take 20% of your net profit as a deduction. So it actually comes right underneath the standard deduction or the itemized deduction on the 10 40, and it just lowers your taxable income. So what you’re going to overall be taxed on for federal income tax. It’s wonderful in many ways.

I, I don’t have a lot of complaints about it other than sometimes it gets a little hairy in figuring it out for different professions, but overall it’s very beneficial to saving on your taxes. So I, I do actually hope that it continues after, I think 2025 is the last year for it, unless they update it. But it’s a vehicle that you should not miss out on when you are having your taxes done. So whether you self prepare or have somebody do it for you and you have a net profit on your business, make sure you see that line item on your 10 40. And if you don’t ask why.

 

[00:25:53] Andrea Miller: Great advice. Great advice. Yeah. Okay. And, and you don’t have any insights yet on, is this something that’s likely to be renewed or not?

 

[00:26:01] Andrea Yahr: I don’t, I don’t. It’s hard to say. I mean, the irs, they tend to wait until the last minute to decide what they’re going to move on for the next year or update and keep going. So I don’t know if they’ll keep it. I haven’t really heard anything negative about that particular deduction on the tax returns. Usually other things are under scrutiny, but that one I have not noticed any scrutiny.

 

[00:26:27] Andrea Miller: Okay. I’m a fan personally.

 

[00:26:29] Andrea Yahr: Right. I’m too.

 

[00:26:32] Andrea Miller: One other thing a lot of teachers will ask about is they know that their benefits to being taxed as an S corp. Can you speak a little bit about what those benefits are and in the conversation of tax planning, when they should maybe consider making that switch or when that should be on their radar?

 

[00:26:47] Andrea Yahr: Absolutely. So an S Corp is wonderful. It’s a wonderful vehicle to save on taxes, but it also brings with it some of its complexities and such. So with the S corp, you basically become an employee of your S corp. So you will have payroll for yourself and withholdings and at the end of the year, the S Corp will file its own tax return. No tax will be due normally, but you will then issue a W2 to yourself and a K1 to yourself, which will go on your personal tax return.

The benefits of having an S corp is the savings on self-employment tax. Right now as a Schedule C you will pay self-employment tax on the full net profit of your business. So if you have a net profit of $60,000, you’re going to pay self-employment on $60,000 with the same company being an S Corp. And say you pay yourself a reasonable salary of $30,000, your net profit then becomes roughly $30,000.

And so you only are paying social Security Medicare taxes on the $30,000 that was W2, and you no longer pay self-employment tax on the net profit. So you save that 15.3% on $30,000 ultimately, which is huge for many people. But like I said, it, it comes with its own complexities of having an S corp. Um, you really have to watch the distributions you take, you have to, you know, make sure that you are taking a reasonable salary for what you do. We actually have a interview that we send our clients for reasonable salary compensation and it helps us figure out the region you’re in, what you do for a living, how many hats you wear as the owner.

And it kind of gives us a, an amount that should be reasonable salary. That is a document we can utilize should the IRS ever challenge what we have set for reasonable salaries. So that’s one thing. And then tracking distributions as well, because you still have kind of track everything that goes to the owner, whether it’s that W2 income or the distributions, and there’s just extra forms that have to be filed. Like I said, an extra tax return for the S corp and some extra forms on your tax return because you have a K one now. But for many, it’s worth it. And a lot of times we don’t recommend doing that until you either have a net profit of over 40,000 or income over a hundred thousand. Or revenue over a hundred thousand I should say, because you don’t want to elect to be an S corp and then find out like the next year like, no, this isn’t going to work for me.

Once you elect to be an S corp, you have to stay with that election for five years before you can move back down to an L L C and schedule C filing again. So it’s really important to feel comfortable in that election and make sure that you’re not rushing into it and it’s the best time to do it.

 

[00:30:04] Andrea Miller: Yeah, yeah. Because you need that stable income and you need to know that you can provide yourself a salary for five years. Not like, oh, I’m going to do this this year, but next year I’m dropping down to part-time. That would be problematic. Okay. Yeah, I know this is one that’s hard for teachers to wrap their heads around because it’s kind of a, there’s a lot of mindset stuff around you’re an employee, like a paid official employee of your business, W2 employee. That’s kind of just weird to be both the business owner but also an employee functionally. So yeah, definitely something to talk to a tax professional or accountant about, but worthwhile in, like you said, in the right circumstance.

 

[00:30:41] Andrea Yahr: Absolutely. Yep.

 

[00:30:43] Andrea Miller: Is there a book or resource that you would like to recommend to our audience?

 

[00:30:47] Andrea Yahr: I really think the JK Lasser Guide to Self-Employment Taxes is beneficial for any small business owner.

 

[00:30:55] Andrea Miller: Awesome. And give the 30 second pitch because that’s going to be a hard sell to people who don’t really like to think about taxes beyond, you know, January through April.

 

[00:31:05] Andrea Yahr: Well, I think if you are doing your own taxes, And you just don’t want to hire somebody else. Having this guide is going to help you get your ducks in a row and make sure that you are prepared for when you have to do your own taxes. If you have a tax professional, you probably don’t need the book unless you really want to learn all the ins and outs of income and expenses and doing your own taxes and how to save the best you can. Hopefully, if you have an accountant, they are providing you the information that you need in order to really save on your taxes and do the best you can for your business.

 

[00:31:47] Andrea Miller: All right, excellent. And where can listeners get in touch with you and learn more about your business?

 

[00:31:52] Andrea Yahr: So we have a website, it’s yahrincometaxllc.com, and we have a contact page, so you can fill out the form on the contact page and submit it, and we will get back to you with any question you might have or a free initial consultation. We also have a Facebook page with yahrincometaxllc. We are happy to have people jump on that and follow us on that. We have quite a few articles that are uploaded and you can also contact us through that as well.

 

[00:32:25] Andrea Miller: Okay, Andrea, thank you so much.

 

[00:32:27] Andrea Yahr: You are so welcome. It was a joy to be here.

 

[00:32:35] Andrea Miller: Andrea is such a great resource on all these topics. This summer, I reached out to her because I wanted to get some input on few changes I was making in my own business. I can’t tell you how helpful it was to be able to talk to a human who understood my business and could give me an answer that considered all the weird nuances of my particular situation, rather than spending hours scouring the internet for a solution that might not have fully applied

At the top of the episode, Andrea and I talked about what to do if maybe taxes weren’t on your radar this past year. And maybe you’re feeling a bit caught off guard or unprepared for the tax season ahead. I appreciated Andrea’s reminder to not freak out. And I’d add to that, don’t beat yourself up for what you didn’t do last year. This is one of those, just keep swimming moments. The best thing you can do right now is to just get started.

Set a date with yourself now to start assembling all your records. Having time on your side will allow you to ask questions of a tax preparer, track down all those receipts, and claim the most tax deductions. I’ve shared a number of tax related episodes and resources over the years, including some where I’ve talked about my own tax prep routines, so I’ll link to those in the show notes if you want to learn more.

As a reminder, my Business Finance for Music teachers course will be starting the last week of January, and enrollment is officially open. If you’d like to reduce some of the mystery around your business finances and learn some tools for approaching money more strategically, this may be the course for you.

You can check it out at musicstudiostartup.com/businessfinance. All the links mentioned in this episode can be found at musicstudiostartup.com/episode111. That’s all for today. Thanks for listening. I’ll be back next week.