Freelancing isn’t all sweatpants and snooze buttons. Well, sometimes it is. But most of the time, it’s cabin fever, caffeine withdrawal, fickle cash flows, and fierce competition for clients. When you boil it down, being your own boss is really hard work — and no time is that more apparent than during tax season. Compared to those with a typical 9-to-5 job or even small business owners , freelancers and self-employed workers face a unique set of challenges in terms of filing an annual income tax return. For one thing, you need to maintain thorough records of all your business-related expenses throughout the year so that you’re organized once it’s time to start prepping your return. You’re also responsible for completing relevant paperwork on your own while hoping-slash-praying that you haven’t missed any deductions or tax breaks. Perhaps most frustratingly, you then have to cough up the year’s worth of taxes all at once because the money wasn’t automatically deducted from your paychecks. Oh, and don’t forget about the federal self-employment tax you’re required to pay. Isn’t adulting fun? Bearing that in mind, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that a 2018 QuickBooks survey of 500 freelancers found that doing one’s taxes is among the most difficult challenges facing modern self-employed workers. It’s an obnoxious, tedious ordeal — so obnoxious and tedious, in fact, that more than a third of freelancers don’t even bother paying taxes, according to the same poll. Since tax evasion is sort of a felony, filing your return every year is in your best interest. Lucky for you that tax software exists. What is tax software? Tax software is a type of software program that’s designed to guide users through the process of preparing and filing their returns, and help them comply with tax laws. Essentially, it’s software that makes it less taxing to do your own taxes. What should you look for in a tax software program? As someone who’s freelancing or self-employed, you need to keep your eyes peeled for a few specific features whilst weighing your tax software options. Those include some sort of accuracy guarantee, solid customer support, a thorough review process that helps you find all possible deductions, and a simple, user-friendly interface. Keep in mind that the cheapest tax software option isn’t necessarily the best tax software option. The program you choose should be robust enough to handle complicated tax returns, since those of freelancers and self-employed workers tend to be pretty involved, and capable of promising a high-ish level of protection in case you’re audited. In other words, now’s not the time to get stingy: you want to get your taxes done, but also done right. (That’s not to say you shouldn’t pay for features you don’t need, but just make sure your bases are covered, you know?) What’s the best tax software for you, personally? That depends. Do you want to file on a mobile device? Do you want to take a chance with free software? Are […]
