The next WordCount Last Wednesday will take place one week early — this Wednesday, March 20, at 10 a.m. Pacific time/1 p.m. Eastern time — due to spring break the following week. Join me for a lively discussion on tax tips for freelancers. Mark your calendar, log onto Twitter and use #wclw to join the conversation.
Tax tips for freelancers
When it comes to paying taxes, freelancers and other independent workers don’t have it as easy as employees. As small business owners, we collect 1099s from companies that pay for our services and file a more complicated tax return. We can take deductions for a home office, traveling for business, and our computer, printer and cell phone.
For the chat, we’ll start by introducing ourselves, answers some pre-set questions, and save room at the end for other questions, tips or advice you want to share.
Here are the questions:
- What freelance-related business expenses do you take?
- What business expenses are you not sure about?
- What do you use to track freelance income and expense for tax purposes?
- If you prepare your own return, what software do you use?
- If you get help from a pro, who do you use?
- If you use tax prep season to analyze your freelance business, what do you learn?
How to join the #wclw writer chat
To join the #wclw writer chat, log onto Twitter account and use the hashtag #wclw to follow tweets related to the chat.
Although it’s possible to use the standard Twitter interface , you might find it easier using a Twitter application such as TweetGrid, TweetChat or HootSuite. Of those three, my favorite is TweetChat, which you can log into using your Twitter account.
You might want to alert followers that you’ll be tweeting more than usual during the chat, and suggest they use Muuter.com to temporarily mute your tweets if they don’t want to tune into the conversation.
If you can’t join us, look for a complete transcript of the chat on Wednesday afternoon.
More tax tips
To help you prepare, check out this story package on tax tips for the self employed that I recently wrote for the Orange County Register:
Here are some WordCount posts I’ve done on freelancers and taxes:
- Top tax tips for freelancers
- 14 things freelancers need to do before ringing in the New Year
- 8 things I learned from analyzing my yearly freelance writing expenses
- 10 ways to cut costs from your freelance business
Got an idea for a #wclw chat? Would you like to participate as a guest speaker? Send your idea or bio to me at wordcountfreelance@gmail.com.
[Flickr photo by by MoneyBlogNewz]