When it comes to filing taxes for your business, you don’t want to end up with mistakes and money lost. To ensure a proper filing process, using a professional tax service is recommended. At Pathways, instead of just filing your taxes for you, we try our best to help you understand your taxes thoroughly. So, how do you file taxes for a small business, and why is it important to use a professional?

Keep All Records
Record keeping is the most important step in the tax filing process for businesses. If there is no record, it never happened, and therefore makes it much more difficult to get correct information. In the process of keeping data, we suggest using a bookkeeping service like Quickbooks to store information used within the filing process.

Use The Correct Form
It is important to know the differences between the tax forms and which is appropriate for a business. The form most used for small businesses is a Schedule C or Form 1120. Schedule C is a simple form that is easier to calculate and input information.

Deadlines are Real
To make the filing process the easiest, be aware of the filing deadline for taxes on small businesses. We are very serious when it comes to this because of the repercussions that may occur due to late filing. 

Pathways is here to help your business breeze through tax season, so why not make your appointment today?

According to USA Today, the company that creates Gibson guitars and Baldwin pianos has filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in an effort to stabilize the business in a new deal. Gibson Brands itself was founded in 1894, and though the company had many supporters, their rapidly declining sales in recent years made it difficult to keep afloat. 
Link:  ​https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/05/01/gibson-guitar-chapter-11-bankruptcy/567821002/

With this latest anouncement about Gibson Brands, Pathways Consulting LLC has been thinking about the adjustment business owners have to make to their business over time in order to continue on.
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When you start to decline in sales in your business, it's very important to come up with a 'gameplan' as to how you will continue your business efforts. As people grow and change, community does as well so often times the service or products you provide become outdated. For instance, many decades ago, they had calltakers for the telephone lines as a prominent job position. As telephones became more self-sufficient in communication, that job position began to become unnecessary. So what could the business owners of those companies have done to adapt and continue their business? Perhaps refine their service to telephone repair or design?

If you are a small business owner, you know how hard it is to keep everything running. The main way to keep it running smoothly is by preparing and planning. Think about how your company could adapt as trends change and your business industry evolves over time.

​​One of the many perks of being a large corporation is that you are eligible for larger tax breaks. They can write off things that normal small businesses just do not have the means to do so. For instance, large corporations can write off research and experimentation. It does not make sense for a small business to spend money on research just to receive a tax break because they have much less revenue. 
  ​There are many more breaks that large corporations can get like deferral of income from controlled foreign corporations, exclusion of interest on local and state bonds, and deduction of domestic manufacturing just to name a few. Of course, these are far outside the reach of small business owners’ ability to take advantage. Meaning even though large corporations will pay a larger amount of money in taxes they do not take the same tole as taxes on smaller businesses.

  This is about to change. Annette Nellen, the Executive Committee chair, testified before the Senate’s Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee in favor of lowering taxes for small businesses as much as corporations. In her testimony Nellen says, “Congress should continue to encourage, or at least not discourage, the formation of sole proprietorship and pass-through entities. If Congress decides to lower corporate income tax rates, small businesses should receive a lower tax rate as well.”
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  Hopefully, the future will hold an easier time for small business tax rates. The whole committee agreed that without tax accounting software small businesses will have an extremely difficult time optimizing and filing their taxes. Having a one stop place, for small business owners, to receive small business advice and have a certified professional file their taxes, in a way that will benefit them the most, is still of great importance. As the tax laws change, small business owners that can save money on their taxes will be ahead of the game and have more capital to invest in their business to promote growth.