Software for Business Taxes

[IslandGuy]

When I was part of a small corporation, I used tax software for all our tax returns and was completely satisfied with the quality of what they did and the fact that I didn't have to figure out depreciation amounts and we didn't have to pay an accountant a lot more than the $100 the software cost us to do the corporate tax account.

Of course, we were a small corporation and in our state there was a special class for small corps versus the big guys, so the rules weren't as onerous, but it worked fine for the feds too.

Does anyone know or have experience as to when it becomes the point to bring an accountant in, assuming you are growing the business? Is it at a certain income amount or if you have inventory (we didn't) or employees (we didn't) or some other key factor that makes an accountant for your business taxes the best alternative (or a lawyer who does taxes too!)?

I hope someday to build things back up again enough to incorporate and put some of my other ideas into practice and hopefully have at least as much success as in a prior lifetime, but never got past the "baby steps" of our 3-man corp. So any advice would be welcome (or "war stories" too )

 

[Mr_Snipes]

Well I think that as long and the books are being taken care of and you are able to take care of the taxes, then you probably do not need an accountant.

But if you start to hire employees, then it becomes a whole different ball game. If it is just the members (owners) of the company (cooperation) who are doing the work, then you probably don't need an accountant or a lawyer, but if you start to hire outside help, then you should probably find both, because there are a lot of other issues that come up when you have people working for you.

Just my two cents worth.

 

[IslandGuy]

I agree. I used to do payroll for a company a long time ago (it was still in the computer age though :lol: ) and it really is a pain when you have to deal with unemployment insurance, disability insurance, health insurance plans, and all the rest.

It's not just you then .... you've got to make sure your employees are covered properly so if God forbid, one of them got hurt on the job, you've got your workers comp all sorted out properly.

I don't think I'd want to take that task on and then working it all into the business tax situation would send me reeling.

I think too (now that I'm taking some time to think about it), it probably depends on how much you trust your partners, if you have them. Of course you should trust anyone you go into business with, but I think you know what I mean. For example, in our corporation, we had three partners (all equal), but one guy didn't have the same vision for the company as the other two, so if he suggested some off-the-wall thing (which he did sometimes), we were able to out-vote him easily. We needed his skill to make the product work that we were selling, but we didn't need his lack of common sense. He wasn't always very happy when we "ganged" up on him, but in the long run I think he appreciated it (or he always seemed to be pretty happy when I gave him a check from royalties on the software he coded!).

Now, I'm just self-employed and I find the off-the-shelf products work for my personal business taxes as a self-employed person. I guess if I incorporated again, it would depend on the people I was with and the risk involved. But I definitely agree that if you add employees into the mix, that's the time to go to a tax accountant - all the rules are just too complicated for the software that's out there I think (even though some say they handle employee-based operations too).

 

[Acroplex]

An accountant pays for his/her own weight in gold. It's a major part of a company's stability - either as an outsourced party or as an employee.