IRS Tax Calendar: Protection for Small Business

Protect your small business with this year’s IRS Tax Calendar. This is also known as “The Tax Calendar for Small Businesses and Self-Employed” (Pub. 1518, Catalog Number 12350Z). It’s a scary world out there!

It’s back in print. Hurrah! We’ve missed having them. We used to give these out each year to our clients because they are really valuable. They have also been known to cause nail-biting and hair-pulling. Unfortunately, all the Spanish language wall calendar print versions are gone and will not be re-printed. Maybe next year they will print more since Hispanic businesses are one of the fastest growing startup groups.

Here’s how the IRS describes it: (no lie)

“It is filled with useful information on general business taxes, IRS and SSA customer assistance, electronic filing and paying options, retirement plans, business publications and forms, and common tax filing dates. Each page highlights different tax issues and tips that may be relevant to small business owners with room on each month to add notes, state tax dates, or business appointments.”

(Just what you want, keep your business appointments with your tax stuff.)

Some of my favorite “tips” from the 2008 IRS tax calendar, the last ones we gave out

1. The front cover: “Small Business is BIG BUSINESS to the IRS”
   You bet! According to the NFIB and others, we pay 60% of all the business taxes. Lucky us.
2. Ms. January: “Choosing a Tax Professional”
   Especially important this year since we still don’t really know what’s coming.
3. Mr. February: “Choosing a Tax Year”
   Yippee! That’s a handy option.
4. Ms. March: “Family Business”
   Hire family members but be sure to pay the employment taxes on them.
5. My personal favorite, Mr. May: “The Cost of Doing Business”
   Did I mention that our tax code is so complicated, convoluted and scary that the IRS’ own estimate for completion by a tax professional is days not hours? It took businesses (of all sizes) 2.3 billion hours in 2009. Not an expert? You probably have no chance at all at getting done before next year. Do we have a problem here?

What research says about tax compliance costs of your small business vs. a large business

It costs $1,584 per employee for businesses under 20 employees (89% of all US firms in 2009): vs. only  $517 for businesses with 500 or more employees (from The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms by Nicole V. Crain and W. Mark Crain, published by SBA Office of Advocacy, September 2010)

IRS Tax Calendar Options

Have I convinced you yet to get your calendar? It comes in many “safe” styles so your business can always be well appointed.

• There’s the printed one available in English only
• There’s the pdf available in English and Spanish
• There’s the  Calendar Connector application tool you can install — make sure you have the most current version
• There’s the online calendar version available in English and Spanish
• There’s the IRS tax calendar subscription (so you’ll always be up to date it says — that’s really scary, too). It adds the dates to your calendar. Can be used with Outlook, iCal (Mac) and Other (whatever that is).
• You can even rate all of these.

We just got our wall calendars. Stop by, we may have one to give you or get your own.

IRS Tax Compliance No Joke

Taxes are no joke although I have tried to be a bit humorous here. Not dealing with them is not an option. Just remember Willie Nelson’s 1992 IRS Tapes.

When my business partner, Daniel W. Diener, and I were delegates to the White House Conference on Small Business, then President Clinton promised a “kinder gentler IRS and other regulatory bodies”. Not happened yet and given the drive for “uncollected income”, I doubt we’ll see it.

I also remember an NPR interview with the head of the IRS who stated publically that the IRS goes after small businesses “because they are cheaters”.  I’m pretty sure that opinion hasn’t changed either.

Author’s Note: The impact of federal mandates was not scrutinized until the passage of Executive Order 11821 in 1974 that provided  limited tracking. The 2000 Regulatory Right-to-Know Act was a major attempt to make information about the costs and benefits of regulations far more transparent and widely available. It requires the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to submit an accounting statement and report that includes an estimate of the total annual costs and benefits of federal rules and paperwork “to the extent feasible.” Crain and Crain also state the cost of tax compliance is probably higher because not all costs are accounted for.

Author’s 2^nd Note: I originally published this the end of December 2012. I even had a bitly.com address. Then it miraculously vanished without a trace. So, I have rewritten it and added more info. It’s a good thing I’m not paranoid.  This time, I have a print copy just in case.