First year o/o filing need advice!

I use a custom version of quickbooks that I paid for to use with my company, it does transfers but there are issues with it and always have been. Intuit has people who you can talk to but you have to ask for them to escalate the problem to one of the better techs, the lower ones handle mundane and simple issues.

More advice?

Get a cpa to help you in your first two years, let them also assist you in setting up quickbooks to make sure you have all the right things. I have found that having one go through the entire process with you helps a lot and there are a bunch of cpa firms that will do this.

 

Kevin rutherford has program for trucker doing taxes called Fuel Gauges. Seem people like Kevin some dont.

Its called Profit Gauges. I never used it but could be something to look at.

https://letstruck.com/take-a-tour

 

You can simply manually put the numbers into Turbo Tax. If you have totals from Quickbook. Takes a few minutes, and voila....done

 

I don't do my own taxes, but I do my own bookkeeping with Profitgauges online. This is online and a do it yourself and very easy for a non computer person. I tried it for free for a month and stayed with it at $23 a month. After I got it set up and learned it, I can now do both settlements a month and all my expenses in 5-10 minutes. The end of year report that I give my tax preparer was very easy to print. I am not sure if this would help with getting turbo tax to work easier. I tried turbo tax online many years ago and I felt like it really wasn't geared towards trucking. Example the rate for nights on the road wasn't for those subject to hours of service. That one mistake paid my tax preparation fees.

 

I just noticed the "first year" part of your post. If your husband owns equipment, not leases be sure that you take full advantage of depreciation on equipment purchased. In my case it was very important to get this correct. It allowed for a very nice refund and got my quarterly payments way down for the next 4 years(tractor and trailer depreciation).

 

Do what Ridgeline suggests. At least this first year. Too many easy, little mistakes can cost you a lot of money in taxes, penalties and interest. Or even in missed deductions that could lower your payment or increase your refund.
Did you file your estimated quarterly returns for 2016? Have you filed your quarterly estimated for the 1st quarter of 2017?
Little mistakes.
Hire a book keeper or cpa for your first year. Get some help. Your husband was trained to drive. Now get your(both of you) training in the book keeping arena by a professional.
One shoe does not fit us all in the trucking business, too many variables.
Good luck.

 

A strong case can be made for using a CPA all the time. Tax law changes every year. I did mine early on, but have benefited greatly from going with a good CPA form that point on. I have saved several times the money in taxes compared to what the CPA charges me. A good cost benefit. I know that folks like to feel "independent" and they can figure out anything for themselves. But there are some things that are better done by a professional. In law, there is a maxim that a person who represents himself has a fool for a client. Depending on the situation, the same can be applied to financials and taxes.

 

How did it turn out? Just wondering. You can PM me if you don't want to air it out. I'm curious.