Tax tips for crafters, creatives, etc.

The lovely Jena over at Modish Biz Tips has a great article about tax planning for creative types and crafters. She had Caroline Devoy of jcaroline creative guest blog about tax planning and preparation for the procrastinator (ie. people like me)!

Too late to do tax planning for 2008 for you business filers? Heck no. But in 28 days it will be! It is too late to change the outcome of your year, but you can spend some time making sure you find every expense possible before you file. For purposes of this post, I'm only focusing on your business return (Schedule C) due April 15. Not getting into the personal stuff. Personal stuff, yes. Personal tax stuff, no.

For those of you that don't keep "accounting" records during the year, don't stress. Accounting is not a revenue-generating activity and though necessary, it is not a good use of your time. So, don't beat yourself up. But you do need to pull together your information in order to comply with the government. Here is a plan to do that:

Sit down with your checkbook (or bank statements), your credit card statements and your PayPal account. Any money you received or spent in your business went through one of these accounts, yes? Oh, and grab a calculator and paper or a computer and let's start grouping these numbers together. I'm also assuming that most of you are cash basis taxpayers, meaning you don't report anything where cash did not change hands. If that isn't the case, go beat up the accountant that didn't make you a cash-basis taxpayer. By default, individuals (Schedule C filers) are cash basis. (Keep reading here...)