people ask How much, i want to know WHEN do you tax yourself?

I have a separate savings account for tax money. At the end of the week, 20% of the gross goes into that account. It sits there untouched til the tax man cometh. Any excess comes back to me for toys or goes toward the truck fund.

 

Suggest you consult a tax professional.
Normally at the end of each year if you own your own business you have to file a schedule c with profit and loss which transfers over to your 1040. If you had to pay taxes one year then you have to make estimated payments quarterly for the next year's tax liability. If you dont you may face a penalty.

 

Set up an LLC/S Corp. Pay yourself a reasonable salary, do the withholding on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis.
What we usually do is forecast your net income and withhold accordingly. We can help you with all of this.

 

I file as an S-corp, as such, I'm an employee of the S-corp.

I use Quickbooks Pro with the payroll feature set up. I take the same salary every month. Quickbooks calculates the payroll tax related withholdings, including the companies required payroll taxes & contributions.

Once I cut the check, I open up the payroll liabilities section for taxes due in that given month and I pay it! I have an account set up online with both the State & the I.R.S. I get it out of the way pronto and at the end of each quarter, Quickbooks tabulates, reconciles and creates the quarterly forms for the State & the I.R.S. I print them out, sign them and send them in.

At the end of the year once I reconcile all the expenses, including depreciation, etc, I usually get a little money back on the W-2's I file.

I'd rather get a little back, then to owe a LOT on the 15th of April because I didn't pay as I went. Been there, done that in the past in my previous construction related businesses, and believe me it's no fun scrambling to beg, borrow & practically steal to come up with 12k to 15k (or more) of taxes owing.

For someone reason the State & I.R.S. don't take too kindly to not getting their portion when due

 

I've saw on a different forum that it is handy to do a monthly profit and loss sheet. Than turn those in at tax time.

 

Paying yourself $400 on one load and $XXX on the next isn’t a “salary.” The easiest way to do it is to make yourself a W-2 employee of your S-Corp and pay yourself a fixed weekly salary, plus per diem. The rest stays in the business account until you either use it to pay taxes or write a check from your company to yourself as a quarterly bonus.

You don’t calculate expenses and taxes on a per load basis. Taxes are calculated based on annual numbers, or quarterly if you’re paying estimated amounts as you go. That’s why paying yourself a set weekly salary is the way to go. Your CPA can tell you what the estimated taxes should be based on your salary, dependents, location, etc.

For example (random numbers):
$1,000 weekly salary + $400 per diem = $1,138 to you, $262 in payroll taxes into a separate business savings account, any extra money stays in the business checking account until the end of the quarter when it’s distributed appropriately.

Make sure you set your salary at a level high enough to pay your personal bills but low enough that you can pay yourself every week even if you don’t work.

 

No problem. This is one of the hardest parts about being an O/O. Not taxes specifically, but the back office stuff that you’re suddenly responsible for.

Think about it this way... if you worked at McDonalds would you get a separate check stub for every shift you work? Of course not, you’d get one check stub per week with all shifts in that time frame combined. Same concept here.

Your CPA will most likely recommend that you become an employee of your own company, so you have to think about “You” and “You Trucking, Inc.” as two separate things. You’re literally holding a company check that you signed as “Mr. CEO” in your left hand and passing it to yourself as “Mr. Driver” in your right hand.

Make sure you keep good records of all transactions and don’t mix money. Personal money is for personal use, business money is for business use. That McDonalds employee I mentioned can’t pay his mortgage out of the cash register, and you can’t pay yours out of the company checking account.