Too Late for Taxes? | Ep. 075

There are two things certain in life… can you answer what they are? 
Today John and Kacie are diving into a topic that every single business owner can relate to. Pop in, say hi, ask questions and join in on the conversation!

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Transcript

 Let's get into it. Let's do it. There's two things certain in life.  Do you know what they are?  What are two things that are certain in life, guys? We want to hear from y'all. Two things. I'm going to give you a couple seconds. If you don't say anything, we're going to tell you. Yeah, even if we're not live anymore.

Y'all put them in the comments. What are the two things or two things that are certain life? Yeah. All right, go for it. Death and taxes. Death.  That's a little morbid. Both of those are terrible. Everybody hates that. Yeah, those are topics nobody wants to talk about. No. Who wants to talk about death and who wants to talk about taxes?

Let's talk about sunshine.  Sunshine is guaranteed in life. We finally got some today. We did. It's nice. Yeah, so go outside and get some vitamin D while you're listening to death and taxes. Justine answered it. She knew. Go girl. Go ahead Justine.  All right. So death and taxes. We're talking. We're not talking about death today.

Nope. We're talking about taxes. We are. Because we have the tax man here. Yeah. Because taxes. If y'all didn't know, taxes are due. What? Next weekend? Monday. This weekend? Monday. Yeah.  Yeah. They're due. Let me tell you, if you didn't know that Monday, April 15th is the tax deadline to file and pay your taxes, um, Get out of the cave that you're living in.

Yeah. Because it's been that way for ever since the tax thing started.  April 15th is the deadline. The deadline. Yeah. April 15th. Is that for personal and business taxes? Well, it depends on the business type, but, um, the majority of taxes are due April 15th. And some businesses can do a different cycle, right?

To where theirs is in like July or something. Yeah, so you have, those are fiscal years. Okay.  But the average small business follows a calendar year. Calendar year. Once you get more complex, then you can go into fiscal years. And that's a whole different animal. More C corps and bigger corporations follow a fiscal year.

That sounds miserable because then you have to do taxes like all year because then you have your personal ones at the beginning and then you have your business in the middle. I just rather get it all over with. Yeah, yeah. Follow the candle of the year if you're just starting out. Um, but if you're like a corporation, S corp, you do partnerships and things, those tax returns are usually due March 15th. 

March 15th. Yep. So those should have already been done. Should have already been done. So you haven't done those yet. Well, good thing  if you live where we live.  And in other areas around the country, if there was like a disaster that happened during this time, you get an automatic extension to June. Oh, that's good.

Everything goes to June. So June 15th is the actual deadline for us in our area. Okay. Yeah. So, um, let's get into, cause I know taxes are such a boring topic. You hear the rattling? What is that? It's the wind.  It's windy out there, man. Yeah, it's windy. Shaking this whole building.  We, uh, we're moving into our new building next week, by the way.

Is that next week? Yeah, we'll be in our new studio. So we're excited to share that with you guys. But, um, taxes are very boring topic, but it's something that we have to talk about. We're going to make it as interesting as possible for you guys today. And John's going to give us, cause it's too late now. If you, if this is the first time that you're hearing that taxes are due on Monday, it's too late.

Yeah. Um, but you, so you need to find a tax person and file an extension, right? ASAP. Okay. A, a sap. What happens if you don't file your taxes on time? Oh, penalties and interest. Penalties and interests are piling up. Yeah. And right now it's, it's high. Ooh. So the penalty is the penalty, but the interest is at 8%.

Ooh. That's a lot. Yeah. They're charging a market rates when it comes to interest right now. It's crazy. Yeah. Cause they need that money. Cause they're throwing it away. Cause it, yeah. They're just printing stuff out of the air, you know,  it's crazy what, what we have to go through. But what I, you know, what's really important to know is, you know, you have two sets of taxes in this country.

Right. You have the employee. If you're like, if you work for a company, you get a W 2, you get a paycheck, and your taxes are taken out. The way you file taxes is different than if you're a business owner. Right? Because you look at the employee, you get your paycheck is your net income. That means taxes are taken out of your check.

Right? And then what you bring home is everything after taxes. And you can pick how much they hold and don't hold, right? Yeah, you do depending on with all that pendants and all that stuff complicated. I give that Uh paperwork to my employees and they all look at me like, uh, Especially how they make it so complicated.

Yeah, they updated the w4 form Which is where you put all your dependent information on And it's pretty, it's pretty hard to understand. Like you need to go take a class before you fill that thing out. Yeah. That's so silly because you can get caught out there. Um, the, the reason for that update on the w four form, just to put it out there so that the government doesn't give you a big refund, right.

And you don't have to pay it's technically, it wants you to come kind of get net zero on your taxes. That's the purpose of that new form. Cause if you're an M uh, an employee and you claim too much, Then they have to give you a big refund, and if you don't claim enough, then you have to pay in. 100%. And so, I think a lot of people, it's so funny when I hear people talk about, I get a big refund, like, they're so pumped about it.

That was your money in the first place. Right. They're not giving you free money. And you got zero percent interest on that money. Yeah. Yeah. You lent that money to our government to do whatever they choose to do with it, and then just gave it back to you. Dollar for dollar,  like you got nothing for it.

Yeah. Okay. So, so they want you to get zero so that we are talking about, I keep interrupting you, you're talking about the employee tax, the employee taxes are different from the employer taxes. Yeah. So it's two systems. We have two systems. Right. And we would just went over the employee one. Now on the business side, as a business owner or self employed, that gets a 1099.

Right. But if you're self employed, you're going to get a 1099 for your work. There's no taxes taken out of that money. That's like an independent contractor. Yeah. Yeah. So you're responsible for tracking that money and making sure you're taking and tracking your expenses because you have to pay tax. You have, you're responsible for the tax on that money.

You know what happens is at the end of the year, when you go to see your tax preparer, and you bet, hey, I have all these 1099s, I made so much money this year, it's great.  And your tax preparer asks you, okay, do you have any expenses to that money to deduct? Uh, no. Okay, you're gonna pay.  employment tax on that money, which is 15.

6 percent on that dollar. And then you're going to pay income tax on top of that. Oh, goodness. I thought we didn't have an income tax in, in our state, federal, federal. And so you pay, if your state has income tax, you pay state and federal and federal. So if you live in California, I feel sorry for you because they're there.

It's California, New York, New Jersey. There's income taxes. Hi,  Tennessee. We're, we're blessed. We don't have. Income tax here in this state, but regardless your federal tax bill If you're a self employed individual that gets a 1099 and you don't track your expenses and you know Keep money to the side for tax purposes.

You're gonna get hit with a big surprise come tax time. Yeah  Okay  so How https: otter. ai  Hurtful tone to that and then we'll go into the preparation because this is something that people don't understand either. Yeah  If you're a 1099 or a business owner, we're even a business owner because as a business owner  The money you make is your gross money.

You're responsible for tracking those expenses, right making sure your Taking your expenses out of that money so that you only pay on the net income,  right? Because if you have so say you brought in we'll make the numbers easy say you brought in ten thousand dollars for the year And then you spent nine thousand dollars in expenses Then you only pay taxes on that thousand or one thousand dollars and the rest just goes away And the rest is as long as they're legitimate expenses.

Okay, as long as the expenses you are claiming are  Are are necessary for the operation of your business. You can claim it right the irs is going to check that and You can put yourself in a gray zone when you get crazy with expenses, but They have to be necessary and ordinary for operating your business.

Okay so now If you have not paid taxes throughout the year Self employed person with a 1099 and a business owner that has net income and you haven't paid any taxes throughout the year Guess what else you have to get hit with  Oh, a penalty, a penalty because you're supposed to pay quarterly, you're supposed to pay throughout the year.

Okay. We are a pay as you go tax system.  That means the IRS wants to get money throughout the year. Not one time in the year because we have expenses as a country. And crazy expenses now that have to be paid out. Yeah. So they want their money. They want your money So do you do it monthly or do you do it quarterly?

How what's the best way as a business? To do this and how are they even supposed to know that they do they get letters in the mail? I just hand all my stuff to you. That's why I don't know any of this  So when you file your taxes like the first time you file your taxes, right you're not going to know if you have to if you have You Estimated payments to make right because you don't know what your income's going to be.

You don't know what it is Yeah, you can project right if you're if you're truly planning you can project what they might be and then you can Anticipate what your tax amount is going to tax burden is going to be and make some payments then right? Um, but if you haven't done that then when the first time you file your taxes Your tax preparer will give you an estimated payment schedule along with your tax returns Okay.

Right. So, and it's quarterly payments that you have to make throughout the year. You just write a check and send it in? You can write a check. You can have, you can have it automatically deducted out of your bank account and whatever it may be. But yeah. Okay. And then at the end of the year, once you actually file your taxes and you get the actual number, that's, they make an adjustment just like with personal taxes.

Exactly. Okay. Yup. So estimated payments are like your W 2. Yeah. That as if you were an employee, okay, so it's basically the same way It's just that one of them it automatically comes out and it's based on the exact numbers that you're getting paid And the other one is you have to manually do it and you have to guess you have to guess You have to be good at looking at your budget and forecasting and determining what it's going to look like And then make the payments accordingly  What you want to do is that come tax time you don't want to have a big tax bill.

Yeah I hear it all the time. I'm filing taxes now and you know several people have to pay and they're like, oh  I didn't know how to pay that much Yeah, well, you know when you make money you gotta pay. Yeah, and it's not a bad thing to pay It's about how do you prepare yourself to? Pay as little as possible Right and how you prepare yourself to not get a penalty at the year Which we're going to go into in just a second.

I have one more question and then we'll hear from um Let's hear from lorna first  And then she's got great tip for you guys today and then um Then we'll get into that how to be prepared So the my question is because I hear this a lot a lot a lot and we've even mentioned this in past podcasts businesses don't realize that the sales So you have your income tax and then you have your sales tax and they'll go at the end of the year and they'll be like Now I owe four thousand dollars also in sales tax because I wasn't paying that throughout the year So touch on that for a little bit too because that's different That's gonna be, we can get deep in that one.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's just do two seconds. Alright, you wanna do this before we, before we watch Lorneth? No, you wanna do Lorneth first? Okay, we'll do Lorneth first. And we'll get into that. We will be right back. 

Hi, everyone, my name is Morna Peters, Director of Marketing and Communications at Better Business Bureau, serving Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky. I hope you are all doing well. Every week, I get the opportunity to share a new tip with you to avoid scams. And this week is no different. I don't know if you've been receiving text messages from individuals saying, we want to purchase your house. 

I can imagine you shaking your heads, right? We're all receiving those text messages. And what do you do in the instances when you receive those text messages? Do you respond? Do you send a laugh emoji? What do you do? Well, I've learned over the years, now I work at Better Business Bureau, never to respond, just mark it as solicitation. 

There are different options, of course, depending on what service you're with. But mark it as that and do not respond. Why not respond? If you respond, what happens? That scammer knows the phone number is live, meaning there's actually a person checking that phone number, and that phone number is in use. And they'll continue to send you text messages.

So first things first, do not respond. Delete it right away. Mark it as scam. Mark it as whatever you need to mark it as.  Second thing is, if you feel the urge to click on a link that is sometimes in the text message they send, so they may send a text message saying, Hey, we want to purchase your home. Click this link to find out more about what we do.

Do not click the link. As I stated before, just click it. Delete it. Do not respond. Move on. If you're interested in someone purchasing your home, you know, there are many agents in our town who are not only professional and trustworthy, but who have many years of experience in that field. So visit them first.

So once again, my tip for the week is always, always, always to be careful when you receive text messages, saying someone wants to purchase your home. If you're interested in selling your home. Find the professionals in our community. That's my tip for the week. If you have any questions, if you ever need to reach out to me, visit info at go bbb.

org and send me an email. If you want to learn more about BBB, go to bbb. org. Or b b b dot org. Have a great day. Speak. Talk to you soon 

and we're back  Is the bomb diggity bomb bomb? Yeah  Do you good stuff? She's awesome. I do love her We're gonna hear from christina in a little bit. Christina's awesome, too We got tips for you guys from that every single week. Okay, so i'm gonna tell you i'm gonna explain to you How taxes feel to me? Yeah How I feel like every year when taxes come.

Okay. Okay, that's gonna be good. You guys tell me if you relate to this, if this is how you feel whenever it's tax season, we should have started with this. It's pretty embarrassing. I was actually trying to debate on if I wanted to share this part of my life with you guys, but sure. Why not?  Okay, so  My husband, we have, and we've got 30 acres of property and there's like a place where he sits on the lawnmower.

Yeah. We're country bumpkins. And it looks out our, on our field. Like we have this huge, beautiful field, but it's a pretty steep drop off like into the field. So he loves to sit on a lawnmower and look over the field and like watch all the, you know, turkeys and things. And we have a pig. And her name is Joy.

She's my love. Not only do they have 30 acres, but they have a pig, too. Yeah, she lives in the house, though. Yeah, she lives in the house. She's our house pig. Sometimes she goes outside a lot, but she, um, whenever I let her outside, she's so funny. She's like super fat and she's so fun and sweet. And she like jumps and kicks and she barks.

Did you guys know that pigs bark? They bark. She's like,  like she barks like a barking pig  and she'll like kick and run and go down the field and she'll chase me. And like, she gets so excited. Uh, cause there's acorns at the bottom of it and she loves the acorns.  So my husband is sitting on the lawnmower watching down the field and I bring Joy out and I'm like, um, watch how funny this is.

She's so funny. I just love her so much. And so I'm like doing my goofy thing like, come on Joy, let's play, blah, blah, blah. For some reason, whenever I talk to her, I get a really high voice and I'm going down the field, down the thing and it, it's been raining a little bit and my foot, there's a round rock and my foot lands.

On the round rock and then slides down the hill and as my foot goes, I start tumbling and we're going down a hill. And so I'm like, my feet go up and I land on my hip and then I'm like rolling forward because we're like, I have momentum going down the thing. And I'm like, you know, we're getting old. And so I, I stand up and I look around at like, I'd sit there for a second.

I'm like, Is everything working? Is my arm okay? Is my hip okay? Did I break something? I'm like kind of in a shock still and I hear something in the corner like off in the distance and I turn around and my husband had fallen off the lawnmower because he was laughing at me so hard. I mean his feet were in the air because he was laughing.

He was like, you are right. That is so funny. I mean it was like five minutes before he could get his breath. I would be doing the same thing. Yes, I'm sure you would, but that to me, that's a perfect visual on that fall is how I feel when taxes come. I'm like, do you feel that way going into the office or leaving the office?

That's the question.  Both. I, after, after I leave the office, I got to sit there and be like, okay, are we going to be okay? Are we still going to be able to operate? Are all the things done? I feel like I just got hit really hard. That's a perfect, isn't that perfect? We're trying to figure out how to tie that in.

That's a perfect way about how people feel when it comes to tax time. You feel pain. Yeah. All your joints start hurting. Yeah. But we're going to, we're going to keep you from that pain. Cause we're going to give you tips on how you can avoid slipping on a rock and falling down the Hill and almost killing your husband in laughter.

Yes. Because you gotta be ready for that because it's a, it's a necessary evil.  You don't want to go rolling into the tax office,  feeling your hip and feeling your joints and then doing the systems check when you leave, you know, and like, am I still here? Is this really happening to me? You don't want to feel that way.

You can look at the ground in front of you and be like, okay, no rocks. Yes. We're all good. Sand it out. Straighten it out. And let's move forward smoothly. Yeah. That's what we're trying to do. So how do we do that? Here's a recommendation, right? Every quarter throughout the year,  reach out to your bookkeeper, tax preparer, or do your own financial checkup.

Right and say what is my potential tax situation going to look like what is my potential net income going to be at the end of the year and How do I make?  Should I send the payment to the IRS? Should I be prepared so that I don't get hit with that huge tax bill at the end of the year? Can we put together a? 

A thing for them that they can get off the business project. Oh, yeah, we'll have it by it's too late this year But for next year, we'll have it. Um by next friday And the back end of the business project is a free resource And it'll be how to prepare It'll be how to prepare. It'll be the, the debt, the payments, the quarterly payment schedule.

So you'll know when to make your payment. Um, and it'll also be, there'll also be a checklist on what kind of expenses you can look to take advantage of as a business owner. Okay. I love that. So we'll have that free for you guys on, if you go to www. Dot the business project dot com. We'll have that up by next Friday for you guys as a free resource.

Yeah I love that. That's why I love the business project. com because that's where you go get all the good stuff Like if you haven't if you haven't checked that site out yet or signed up yet You're missing out, you know as a business owner You need access to all the resources that can help your business be successful and you find it there We're in a soft launch right now.

So we need y'all to get on and test it for us. Test it out. Tell us what you think.  So you, you mentioned sales tax before we went into break. Yes. Oh yeah. We didn't even go there yet. I was skipping.  I was going to let that one, that topic go by because I think one of the biggest, uh, things that business owners, um, make a mistake of, um, especially if you're selling a product or service that requires sales tax, Right?

That means it requires you to charge. Do services require sales tax ever? Some services depending on the state you live in. Okay. So it's all state specific. Gotcha. So sometimes services do.  Yeah. Sometimes services do. So, you know, if you're in a state that Taxes you for everything verify if your service  It requires sales tax for it Um, but typically if you're selling a product, you're definitely going to have to um charge sales tax  That money is not yours  And that's the tax that like when you check somebody out, so i'm buying an apple and the apple is a dollar But then it's a dollar  10, a dollar 10, because that 10 cents goes to the government, but they really, it all goes in your bank account.

It does. So you're like, Ooh, I got an extra 10 cents, but really it's not yours. It's not. And the biggest mistake that happens is the business owners think they include that money in their operating expenses, right? They use that money to pay expenses and then  they don't file sales tax, which is in Tennessee, it's monthly.

So depending on what state you're in, it could be monthly, quarterly, But you have to file sales tax throughout the year and you're not paying that. You can't hide from sales tax.  The state will come after you. They want that money. Like that's, that's the, sales tax is the majority, um, income producer for most states. 

Yeah, I can imagine if you're paying 10 cents on every dollar, that's a lot of money. Yeah. What if you're an online business? You could still have to pay sales tax. In the state that you're in. You have to pay sales tax in the state and also depending on how much you sell in other states, you got to pay sales tax there too.

Okay. Yep. So you, if you're an online business and you're doing really well selling all over the country,  make sure you get yourself a program that tracks your sales tax and also remits it for you in those. In those other states. Yeah. Are there programs that will take it out automatically so you don't have to worry about it?

Yeah. Yeah. Programs like Avalara. Okay. Um, Avalara. TaxJar is part of Avalara. But that program does it, it automates the process for you. Okay. So you just, it'll just take it out. That's nice. Yeah. So utilize that. And sales tax is not necessarily, um, a federal tax issue. It's a state specific issue. So pay attention to that.

Gotcha. So the hurt you federal government doesn't get any sales tax. It goes all the states and that's how they find a lot of the schools and the roads and the right, that's a big, yeah. Okay.  So we talked about the two things, certain in life. Okay.  The one that we're focusing on is not death, it is taxes.

Sometimes you feel like you're dying going into the  office though, but when you leave,  we gave you guys a brief overview on how it works. So like how employee taxes versus a business taxes work. And we talked about sales tax. I told you a very embarrassing story. And then now we're going to get into how to be successful, right?

How to prepare. And we're going to have a document for you guys. On the business project, www.  thebusinessproject. com. Um, by next Friday so that you can start preparing for next year. Or if you did an extension, it will help you for this year. Yeah. Okay. So go, let's give us your tips, all the tips. Okay. I got the first one.

Go ahead. If you have so many great.  You don't have to know any of the stuff. You just give it to them. Yes. That's my first tip. And I would say in that process, vet who that, um, person's going to be. Communication is important, right? So you want to have ongoing communication with your, um, accountant, right?

You don't want to just meet them once a year because how are you preparing? If you're just sitting down, having a conversation once a year,  Right. You're just learning the pain that you're about to be inflicted by the IRS. So you want to have ongoing relationship ongoing. It's gotta be a whole, it's gotta be, there's gotta be a tax planning, um, relationship throughout the year.

You don't want to feel like you're being an inconvenience to them because I've worked with tax people in the past to where if I ask questions or if I want to be explained something or you know, if I want to get pro proactive about things, it's almost like, ugh,  like they get so frustrated. Sorry. That was really loud.

They get so frustrated.  Um, but that's how they feel, right? Yeah. Um, and, and that is not, if that is how you're feeling with your tax person, you need to find another tax person. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. You want to, uh, vet. Dude, definitely vet. Those major partners that, um, your business needs to be successful.

Lawyer, tax, and insurance. Yeah, make sure you spend some time vetting those. Get a good one. Ones that, um, truly have a vested interest in your success and will be willing to work alongside you. But then, you know,  Don't cheap out, you know, you got to pay, you're going to pay for what you get to. So that's something that you have to, um, consider, but if it's going to save you money in taxes, then it's a time and time, then it's paying for itself.

So look at it that way.  Um, so the tip is number one, have a good team, right? Have a good relationship with your tax preparer. That's the, that's the first tip. The second tip is make sure you're tracking all your stuff properly. Tracking. Track your expenses. Mm hmm. And automate automate it if possible. Yeah.

What's the, what's the best way to track? Using a bookkeeping system. Like software. So you have good ones, like I'm not going to say the most popular and everybody knows that one, but you also have that one's also very complex. Yes, it is. Yeah. But you have some good user friendly ones out there that are great competitors like wave zero and even Patriot accounting.

Those are some three. Um, pretty popular ones out there that are gaining in popularity and they're a lot, uh, a lot cheaper and very user friendly and it can connect right to your bank account where all your transactions come in. You just set up what you were, what your basic expense categories are. So you should know that as a business owner where you spend your money at.

Right. You set those up and then everything can automatically import into that stuff. That's a hard part for me. Getting started is like, I get so much anxiety over setting up the categories. Cause I'm like, what if I get them wrong? Or this one could be a subscription or it could be a, you know, program.

And how do you like, how do you even get those categories work with your accountant? Work with your accountant. But you know, in, in, in essence, if it's an expense to your business.  If it's a, if you ca, if you code it as a subscription or program, it doesn't matter. No. Okay. As long as you capture it. Then how come they have all those things for your, for, so you can break it down and see, so you can break it down.

Okay. That's for you, you, you basically want to create that thing to help you understand what you're looking at. Right. You know, set it up for yourself. Yeah. Don't use the template.  You know, you have to use it because every business is different. So you want to make sure it, it speaks to you and you understand what you're looking at.

So you can name it, whatever you want to, as long as it, as long as you understand what you're looking at. Jay, Renee, I'm going to give a shout out to a couple of people that are watching first. She's watching. She's not here today, but she's out of town. She's watching from out of town. So what's up, girl? We miss you.

My auntie Bones is watching from California. What up auntie Bones? What is up auntie Bones? And then Faith and Justine. Yes. Are two of our local girls are watching. So thank you guys. What's going on Faith and Justine. Yeah. We want to hear, we want y'all to join in the conversation. So if you have questions about taxes or if you have comments, yeah.

Tell us if you filed, tell us it was a nightmare. If you have comments, um, if you just want to say hello, if you want to ask a question that's unrelated to taxes, then. You can't.  Yes, they can. They can too. This is strictly on taxes.  John's excited about this one. You are way too excited about today. I must say.

My world. Yeah.  He's been eating, sleeping, and breathing taxes. Oh my God. Every day my eyes get crossed. Like I'm leaving and it's like,  where am I?  There's other worlds, John.  Okay, so. Not right now. We, we got, we got some good tips for you guys. We've got the. Find a good partner. Yes. Um, not partner, but whatever the word is.

Partner is not a good. I heard from my lawyer that partner, don't use partnership unless you're actually in a physical contract, making money together. Um, that was good advice. That's a bonus tip for you today. That is good advice. Yeah. Um, uh, what was this? Track your expenses. All right. Then what do we got?

Use a good system. Use a good system. Oh, my mom's here too. What's up mother deary?  Mama! Automate it. Mama!  What's up ladies? Yes. Where's all the guys at? Guys don't wake up yet. And they're quiet.  All right, automate it. What else we got? Should we hear from Christina? I feel like we're just rolling down the hill.

We tripped on a rock. We're rolling down the hill. We're gonna hear from Christina and gather ourselves and then we'll be right back. Hey there. I'm Christina Stubblefield, a business coach and digital marketing strategist and co owner of Sew In Media Group. Today, I want to talk about a topic that I know many of us can relate to.

Email overload. Raise your hand if you've ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of emails flooding your inbox. Well, you're not alone. But don't worry, I've got a quick tip to help you manage your inbox more effectively. My top tip for tackling email overload is to prioritize your messages.  Start by identifying the most important emails that need your immediate attention.

You can do this by scanning the subject lines or using filters to flag important messages. Once you've done identifying your priority emails, Make a plan to respond to them first thing. This will help you stay focused and ensure that you're addressing the most pressing matters first. So the next time you're feeling overwhelmed by your inbox, remember to prioritize your messages and tackle them one step at a time.

You've got this.  If you found this tip helpful and want to connect with me, just visit my website, christinastubblefield. com. I hope you have a great day.  Some stuff and we're back.  Christina's dropping some gems. Yeah. She looked very springy. Yeah. And that cute little pink shirt. I love it. Tis the season.

Tis the season. I'm so excited for this warm weather coming. Yeah. The sunny skies. That's the good thing about Texas. Yeah, is it means summer is almost here. Yeah, it means we're bringing in some  good weather Yeah, I guess if you want to think about it that if that helps you feel better  That's what we're here for  We don't want it to be so painful.

No. All right. So I feel like we gave them some good tips. We talked about a lot, a lot today. We're going to have some more resources for you guys on the back end of the business project. Okay. So if you, if you, if they need to walk away with one thing today  that has to do with taxes, what is the one thing that they need to walk away with knowing?

Don't get  hit with penalties when you don't have to. Okay.  Right? And that's because you don't pay taxes throughout the year, or you pay way too little. Don't get hit with a penalty. Sit with someone, create a, a anticipated tax thing, and prepare for that  ahead of time. When's a good time to start preparing for taxes next year?

January 1. Of that, of last year? Yeah.  Of this year? Not January 1 of 2025. But January 1 of 2024. So you're already behind. Yeah, because you're, you've already, you have an understanding of how you did the previous year. So, you have an understanding of what your,  this upcoming year is going to look like. So you can say, alright, I know I have to start preparing for that tax hit that's going to come, right?

So prepare as early as possible.  Yeah. So because especially if you have to pay things monthly or quarterly, we're already a quarter into the year. So you're already behind. Yeah. First quarter for 2024 is due April 15th with your tax  from 2023. That's like. A double banger. So fun. Yeah.  Preparation is key.

Glad that we can be the bearer of good news today.  Yep. If you have more questions, of course, please place it here.  So that we can help answer it. The goal is to have you be as prepared as possible and running a successful business.  And we're going to go back. We go back and we look at the comments and we use these comments to build future podcasts.

So if there's something specifically that you're struggling with in business, or you have questions about, or the next milestone that you're getting to that you have, you want us to cover on a podcast, this is about you guys. It's not about us. It's about you guys. And so if y'all aren't telling us what you need.

We don't know. Yep. Exactly. Yep. So put it in the comments. And if y'all have any questions for John, specifically about taxes, I have one right here. Um, as a senior, when can I stop filing?  As a senior, you, the only time you can stop filing is when your income is not taxable. So if you're collecting social security, um, you know, there's a, But depending, there's a dollar limit where social security is not taxable before it becomes taxable.

And, um, that's where you don't have to worry about filing anymore. That was probably not good news. No, but as long as you're making income, you have to file taxes. If you're not making enough, if you're not making over the standard deduction, then you don't have to file. Which is what? Is it different in every state?

It's different in, well no, it's a federal, um, and so it depends if you're filing single, joint. With kids. Yeah, with kids and all that, so the standard deduction varies. Um, for single it's 13, 800.  So if you're making more than that. You're gonna have to pay some taxes. Yeah. So do you think that taxes are ever going to get more simple or do you think they're just going to keep getting more confusing?

Every time they say. That they want to make taxes easier, they add another form to the tax return.  So, there's no such thing with our, uh, out of touch government in making things simpler. Yeah. Right? Um, until they start incorporating true professionals, like true business owners in their decision making process.

Mm hmm. Everything's always going to get harder job security for you though job security for me. This is a recession proof business, baby  All right, that was a great great questioned question  So if we're not live anymore and you have a question that doesn't mean that it won't get answered put it in the comments We'd love to hear from you head on over to www. 

thebusinessproject. com you have to use the w's. I know it's really annoying. We're trying to get it fixed uh, but We got lots of free resources for you in there. I would say, um, you know how you put, you could put that page on your favorites when you log in, put it on your favorites so that you don't have to worry about typing it in.

I love that. Type it in once, put in your favorites and then just click on it and go.  I love that. That's great. And we're trying to load it with new content every month. And I think that's it. Like, comment, share, do all the things for the videos. We're slowly growing our audience. We're not doing any advertising.

It's just you guys, you guys are all that we're depending on. We're still, we're both running a hundred different directions. So this is not a huge priority, but we believe that businesses need this and it's really important. And so we continue to do it. So we need you guys to help us grow it and help us make it a focus.

Love it. All right. We'll see you next week. See you later. Have a good one.