Still cut it?

Learn to do it yourself ... taxes aren't as hard as everyone would have you believe. As matter a fact there is actually nothing special about trucking from any other business as far as taxes.

 

Why would you need to talk to a "tax professional" about your business plan?

That makes no sense.

Talk to an accountant.

 

Or to someone at your bank that does business loans etc.

 

Whoa there, you are over thinking this.

Let's say you get leased to a carrier, and you have a driver - this is just an example to explain the tax thing.


Say it is a $1000 for example purposes.


The carrier has your driver do a load, at the end of the load, he sends in proof of delivery.



You get a settlement from that load when ever the carrier sends it to you which shows you the amount of money you get, $1000 and then a check for a $1000.

So you have an agreement with the driver that you get 60% of that amount and he gets 40%.

That means he gets $400 gross.

This is the manual approach I had to do in the past.

So you have this simple chart that you get from the IRS that tells you what you need to withhold with the exemptions that the driver declares and the amount of his gross, say it is $85 that has to be held. Then there is another chart that you have to look at for the medicare and all of that other crap to be withheld - that may be more. AND then the state taxes. NOW there is a tax you have to pay as part of the SS tax, I think it is on that chart with the other medicare and SS crap that tells you, and so on.

When you get the totals, you take that money and put it away.

What happens is every quarter you submit your payroll records form to the IRS with a check for the total amount that you owe - you owe it, not the driver. Then they do their magic.

NOW that is the old way, takes a bit of time but then you have the new way. Plug the numbers into the computer, it tells you what you need to do and that's it. Every quarter, if you use a payroll service, it will spit out a report and you cut a check - some do a direct payment to both the driver and to the IRS.

Here is the thing, you still need an accountant to set this up for you, I know you don't want to spend the money but they can do things to save you money most of the time. I've never met a poor accountant but I've met a lot of dumb ones so selecting one that will fit your needs is critical - don't worry about them being in the trucking service, I think that was BS made to make it all look complicated.

 

That's the best approach but get one before you even consider signing papers on anything. Start looking at least a few months before.

 

If you go to the IRS website or a local office, you can find out what you need to do for social security and income taxes. If you lease to a carrier they might have a program for a tax service. There are several that specialize in trucking. There are a few things that are different with trucking. For instance, the per diem is higher than in some other industries. You can either keep track of your daily expenses or just take the per diem deduction. There are several tax programs you can use on the internet. One is TaxAct. I know people who love the program. I have software that keeps track of my revenue and expenses. At the end of the year I can print out reports on expenses or do a profit and loss and just transfer the information to the tax forms. I use Trucknpro. In fact, I have used it for a number of years. Recent versions of the program have a section to put your days out of town and it calculates your per diem for you. Whether you use that program or something else, it will help you to have some way to keep your records. I got behind this last year, so I will need to catch up before taxes are due. I made some changes to my business last year and got the new version of Trucknpro. It is a little different than my old program. Keeping good record is critical with any business. If you keep your records up to date, it is much easier to do taxes at the end of your tax year.