Doing my OWN taxes

Fill or file? Save 9 to 10 % of gross, and send it in every quarter, both state and fed. Are you a corporation, llc or sole propieter?

 

If you are planning on doing your own income taxes, don't. Hire someone who knows about trucker deductions, etc. They will save you more than their fee.
My daughter does taxes, Tax Depot, Litchfield Mn.

 

A good CPA will easily pay for his own fees out of tax savings.

I don't understand how ATBS can possibly determine what your maintenance expenses are, unless you hand them a box of receipts and tell them to make it up the best they can.

You should have every transaction related to your business entered and classified as to what it was (Fuel, office expenses, maintenance and minor repairs, major repairs (i.e. overhaul), bank fees, professional fees, etc, etc, etc). The accountant has no need to see anything but the total for the category. Paying a $75 / hr accountant to be your secretary and enter receipts is poor business practice.

 

You can use just about any bookkeeping software for records but you need someone you trust for the tax advice (pretty limited if you want it to work with mileage though). I've had friends use atbs and they always found out they coulda done better once they dumped em. I just use quicken home and business for records and do the mileage calcs by hand each month. It wont do tax forms though.

 

There is a huge difference between a book keeper and CPA. I have CPA doing my taxes for decades. They are up on everything and revenue dept has to deal with the CPA if any questions. Money well spent IMO

 

As a self employed driver, using a schedule C for business expenses for the last 4 years, I made quarterly payments based off of the previous year tax owed. Form 1040, line 63, total tax. If you make a bit more money you will owe on your taxes, so keep a safety net, but shouldn’t be penalized.
According to:
Penalty for Underpayment of Estimated Tax
A taxpayer generally will be subject to this penalty if the tax is $1,000 or more and the taxpayerdid not prepay on a timely basis at least the smaller of (1) 90% of the current year tax, or (2)100% of the prior year tax (110% if the prior year AGI was over $150,000 ($75,000 if married andfiling a separate return)).
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As for ATBS, I used them for almost 3 years and was frustrated the whole time. I would scan in receipts every month and would have to go back over how they entered and categorized expenses. There were corrections needed every month, for either completely missed entries on their end and entries that they said weren’t business expenses and clearly were. Why pay them for bookkeeping, if you are essentially doing it yourself.
They also base their estimated quarterly tax payments with no regard to the HOS per diem rules, for both years they did my taxes I got a huge tax return for me and my wife, because we overpaid a ton! While some people like a big tax return every year, I would like to break even or come close at the end of the tax season, and budget that money throughout the year instead.

As other people have responded, you will find many different ways you can get to the answer, a CPA should ultimately be consulted so you can decide what would be best for you.