Let's jump right in with Toothbrush Tuesdays! You may be thinking, "Don't taxes belong on Wall Street Wednesday? Not exactly. We are not discussing money, but daily and weekly actions that, if left undone, leave you in the lurch at tax time.
If you have one or more home-based businesses, tax time can be tricky if you don't keep track all year long. Do you scramble to get things together each year? Well, would you like this year to be the last?
Get a red file folder or notebook and label it Income Taxes 2010. Use a labelmaker if you have one, or write directly on a label sticker, or right on the notebook or file. Starting is what matters. It also doesn't matter what your current or future filing system looks like as long as this one item contrasts the rest. After all, you will have to have all your information in once place to get your tax paperwork filled out, right? Since you have to do this anyway, you are setting yourself up for 2011.
Right now, find your 2009 return, and put it in there, plus any worksheets, sales receipts, mileage logs, or donation receipts you can find. You may need to print out a calendar to backtrack your appointments, too, if you haven't tracked that! When you receive interest statements or other income earnings reports, put them in there. This is half the battle. In the future, any pesky piece of paper that you may need for taxes can be indiscriminately thrown in there, and you can breath a sigh of relief that it is just where it belongs! Oh, and there is a reason that it is RED! It's easier to find!
This is a simple starting place. If you are already light-years ahead of this, this post is not for you! Ha ha! Just remember, organizing is like brushing your teeth and raising children: If you don't do it regularly, you feel yucky, and things just keep changing!
Go crush it!
Shelley
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