How to Handle Taxes as a Freelance Writer
Confused about how to handle paying taxes as a freelance writer? Not sure if you should switch to quarterly tax vouchers or work with an accountant? Paying taxes annually works if you have a full-time job...the difference is typically small. But owing thousands of dollars, maybe even tens of thousands of dollars, once a year can be difficult to manage. We're chatting about how to handle freelance writer taxes, accountants and quarterly tax vouchers, saving for tax payments, and money management for tax purposes.
P.S. I’m not an accountant, but a writer :). This is from my experience over the last almost decade as a freelance writer.
________
Hey, so today we're going to talk about the very unsexy topic of taxes, but I'm going to try to make it sexy. I know that sounds a little weird, but I know that taxes are a big part of running your own business and that, that means a lot to save enough money to pay your taxes. And then as you get going as a freelance writer, sometimes that means switching to quarterly instead of doing an annual payment, which can be a lot of money upfront. Hey Jay, Hey Getty. I just saw you pop in. So what we're going to talk about here is how to kind of work with your taxes in the beginning, and then how to work with them and an accountant a little bit later on once you're a little more established and have more, basically more money that you owe to the government.
So when you're handling taxes as a freelance writer, when you're starting out, basically what you want to do is I like profit first. So profit first, as long as you make under 250 K, that means that you're saving 15% of your income. So that means that when you get a paycheck, like whatever it is, whatever client pays your invoice, that means that you're saving 15% of that every single time. And you save it in a different account than your regular accounts. So if you have profit first, you have five accounts. That means you have income. That means you have OPEX, which means operating expenses. That means that you have own comp, which is your own compensation. It means you have profit and it means you have your taxes account. So you would move your money from income, where you get all your checks deposited to taxes, which is 15%.
So I like doing that just to have the 15% always available. And then for, for some reason, you made a ton of money and you owe more taxes than are in your 15% tax thing. You have profit to pull from to kind of make up the difference. But if you always have a mode where like every time you get a paycheck, you pull, you know, 15% out, put it in that tax account for later, that'll help you. If you're going to do annual taxes when you first start out. So if your taxes are, you know, $1,000 or $3,000 or $5,000, like a smaller amount, when you're first getting started you know, annually, I would just leave it in there and then just pay your taxes annually when it pops up in, you know, when you want to do it in March or April, whatever that is.
So I would just do that annually. And then as your income increases, you're going to want to move to quarterly payments. So for me, having a giant tax account with a ton of money, like thousands of dollars in it, and only paying that annually is a really big pain in the butt because it's like, you have no idea what that number is going to be. You're not really sure what the difference is between taxing, taxing, what you made last year and this year. Sometimes I know that it's really easy to just pull money from that account, right? So it's really easy to just see like $5,000 hanging out in a tax account. And you're like, you know what? Taxes are due for another six months. I'll just take a little dip into here and take a little piece out and Oh yeah, I need this software and Oh yeah, I really want this planner.
And Oh, I really want this other thing for my business. You know, I want to upgrade my tools. It's really easy to dip into there. And if you instead switch to quarterly taxes, quarterly taxes allow you to plan every quarter to pay them some money. So that means that you're paying basically you're paying double in April. So you're paying any that you didn't basically, if you made more money and you owe something in taxes, you pay that in April, but you also have a voucher due in April. So you have the voucher due in April. You have a voucher due in June, you have a voucher due in September, and then you have a voucher due in the following January. So you're paying taxes basically January, April, June, and September of every year. So it helps make sure that you have money for taxes.
And it's also getting paid ahead of time. There's one little thing that if you make a certain amount of money, that if you don't pay your taxes, they T they give you a fee, right? Like they, they penalize you for not paying your taxes ahead of time, because you are making all this money and you should have done it quarterly. It's a whole thing. So I like quarterly taxes just cause it's like, all right, tax, money's gone. I don't have this giant account full of money. I'm not going to get this panel. I'm not going to get penalized for not paying my taxes or not, not, not paying my taxes. I'm not going to get penalized for basically not paying early or paying a difference by being a contractor or freelance writer. And I just, I just feel like it's a lot easier just to pay those vouchers.
And then when you get to April and you have a difference, like, even if you doubled your income or even if you ended up making a ton more money, the difference is really small compared to what you would be paying. So instead of paying a different, like, instead of paying five or $10,000, you're paying a difference of like one or $2,000, and it's a lot easier to manage your money. And I feel like, especially when you know, we're running a business and we're trying to move all our money around and make sure that we have enough money to pay for things like in our business, and then also pay ourselves. It's a lot easier just to have your taxes one and done, like you just do the voucher and you're done. So that kind of leads to the question of, well, where do we get the vouchers?
Where do the batteries come from? Well, the vouchers come from an accountant. So I started working with an accountant. Gosh I think right after I started my business, like right before I moved to Austin. So it's been, it's been a good six years or more that I've been working with this accountant. So he is authorized to do taxes in Texas obviously. And he does my taxes every year. So I pay him a few hundred dollars to do my taxes and he does the special forms and does all the special discounts and all the magic stuff that I have no idea how to do. And that TurboTax doesn't always do. And then he sends me the coupons, basically the vouchers where I just, you know, cut them off. It's just a little piece of paper. And it says my business name. It says basically how much I owe my social security number.
Like all these things that are on there that tell the IRS like, Hey, this is Mandy Ellis. And she's paying her taxes ahead of time. Please don't penalize her. So you send these vouchers, like I said, you send them in January, April, June, and September. And you get four of them from your accountant. They, they look like they're just like little pieces of paper and you send a check with them. So when you get them it's really easy just to basically, here's what I do. I cut all like the vouchers, come on this giant sheet of paper and you just have this little ticket at the bottom. So I just cut the ticket off. I put it in an envelope. I have it all addressed and all stamped with a return to sender, all that stuff. And I write the check and I leave it in there.
And then when it's time to send it, I just date the check and then mail it. So when I'm doing my taxes every year with my vouchers, they're all, that's part of my tax processes. I prepare all the vouchers for the coming year and the checks and the envelopes. They're all ready. The only thing I need to do is date it. So that makes it really easy for me to complete them instead of waffling and being like, Oh, I would really like to have this money. And I really don't want to do this right now. And this sounds like a lot of effort to send these vouchers. Like it's really easy. All I have to do is put the date on there, like put the envelope together, like stick it together and mail it. That's really simple to do. And if you do this every year, that means that your accountant already knows like, Hey, they need their vouchers.
And those vouchers are dependent on how much you made the previous year. So if you made 50 K the previous year of the vouchers for like, let's say you made 50 K this year and 2020, the vouchers for 2020 that you sent in 2021 would be based on that 50 K. So in 2021, if you made 75, K you have already paid for at least 50 K worth of taxes. The difference that you're going to pay is going to be coming in April, when your taxes get all done. And the they'll figure, you know, your accountant will figure out how much you owe. So to me, that actually helps a ton. It's like, you're already most of the way there. Like, even if you make more money, even like, even if you were to double your income, you've at least paid some of your taxes and it, it eliminates some money from that tax account that you have where you don't have to, you know, you don't have that temptation to dig into it and you don't have that temptation to move it around, or worry about any fees or penalties that you get by not paying your taxes on time or by waiting super long to pay your taxes.
So I like that system just because it's super easy to do. And you get in kind of a rhythm, you get your taxes, you pay any difference that you owe, you set up your envelopes you set it up in your calendar. Like I just set it up to remind me every year. Like I have it in my I Cal so that every single year it's just like, you know, repeat yearly. And I say, remind me two weeks before, remind me one week before, like I have all these reminders in there to remind me to set it up and put the date on the check and mail it. So all of these systems that you set up with your taxes make it really easy to complete them. And when you, when you end up sending those vouchers, like you date the check, mail it, and it's gone, don't have to worry about it anymore.
So if you're worried about paying taxes and you're worried about how much you owe, I would just simply start with that 15% income tax account. So I definitely recommend reading profit versus profit first is like changed my business. It will help you manage your bunny so much better. And just having the profit account means that you have another buffer. So like, let's say your taxes aren't enough. You still have your profit account to help you, you know, basically buffer anything that might come in and anything that you might owe or, you know, what if you do, if you end up having extra money, Hey, CVS is sewed up by CVS. I think that's how you say your name and CVS. So just remind me if I'm saying that wrong. So that's how you kind of manage all of those little pieces. So when you're looking for you know, switching to an accountant, I think the first time you do it, like if you're just freelancing and you just have, you know, a thousand dollars ish to pay on your taxes and you still have a full-time job, I would make sure to just get that done by adding into your taxes, like, if you want to do turbo tax or something, that's fine.
If you want to get an accountant to help you get any kind of discounts, like that's always a bonus. So if you feel comfortable doing that, then do that. But I think as you grow your freelance writing business, having an accountant to manage your tax stuff, and then also manage your vouchers and help you figure out the differences and get any bonuses or, you know, stay up to date on the tax code, which, you know, I'm not staying up to date on the tax code all the time. It's really complicated. So having someone who is paying attention to all these different things that you can watch with your taxes, like maybe there's a new break that came out for freelance writers, right? Maybe there's something that came out, that'll help you save money, but you didn't know about it. And turbo taxes and like paying attention to every little thing.
And it's a little robot, right? Like it's made by people, but mostly it's a robot and like a human being, doing your taxes, they'll pay attention. All of these things that say like, Hey, there's this really weird thing that sometimes if you do this, you can do this. And you're like, Oh, I'm already doing that. And they're like, Oh, great. Like here's another deduction or here's, you know, a bonus or whatever. And it really helps to have someone who pays attention to all those things on your side. And like I said, like for me to do my taxes and get the vouchers, get all the bonuses and all the extra stuff and all the, like, if I have a tax question or whatever, I can just email him, like it's a couple hundred dollars a year. So for me to get that done, it's a few hundred dollars and it's totally worth it like that.
Even if I didn't have enough money in my tax account, I could pull $200 from my profit account because I've been saving profit all year. So it's, to me, it's totally worth it to have all of those things. Cause the penalty of not paying your taxes is I think a lot more than $200 or $300 or $100. So I think investing in an accountant who understands how to work with freelance businesses is really, really helpful. So I always think that's a good idea. And when you're trying to manage your money for taxes, it's, it becomes a lot easier when you see how all the money flows. If you see that the money flows every quarter to pay your taxes, you have this management technique, that's kind of like a full-time job, except your doing all the pulling up the strings, right. It's not just automatically coming out of your paycheck.
And then you're like, okay, I get this much. Like it teaches you to manage your money a little bit more carefully. Cause you know that January, April, and June and September, you owe someone money like a bunch of money. So you're like, okay, well I have to be really careful because you know, I can't buy that software, upgrade that software until, you know, may or February or October, because I need to pay my taxes. And then after my taxes are paid, I'll look at my finances, see what's going on and see if I actually have money to do that. So I feel like a lot of times people end up kind of missing the money management steps when they move from full-time to freelance, they've kind of been in this auto pay situation, right? Your auto pay situation is that your employer is just taking their money out, right?
Your employer is paying your taxes, they're doing all that stuff. And then hopefully you get a refund at, you know, at tax time. And, but it's, it's not really managing your taxes. It's just something that happens to you, right? It's not something that happens to you by your employer and they're handling all this stuff. But when you actually manage your own business and you're thinking about, okay, every quarter, there's this, that means this. That also means that that also means that there's a lot of different pieces there that you're paying attention to. So if you have your tax account, like in January, you're like, cool. I'm starting out the year paying this amount in January. Okay. Now I need to, you know, by April do these things or I need to, by September or June do these things, it helps you manage how your money flows.
So like, for example, if you're not making as much money in June and your voucher is $500 and you only have $200 in your tax account, you don't have to pay that voucher just because you have the voucher doesn't mean you have to pay it. So there's a really important point there. The vouchers are for planning, but they're not a hundred percent. Like they're like the IRS says like, Oh, you got the voucher. You have to pay it. It's not like that. If you have $200 in June and you're like, man, I actually, my voucher says 500. You can send them a check for $200 and they will pass it. They will cash it. So they, the fact that you have less money there, you have at least paid something and you've given them the voucher and you're still kind of on track. So if you end up making less money, so let's say you're not actually on track to, to eczema.
Let's say, you know, something happened or you haven't, you know, had that much time to market or your business is struggling a little bit and you're making less money than the voucher don't send. Don't send the full amount if it's not in your tax account. Okay. So when you have that money in your tax account let's say it's 200. You send your voucher. It says 200 on the check and 500 on the voucher. They will cash it. I've done it. And then let's say in September, you're like sweet. I got this huge project. I have all this money coming in. And instead of having $500 in my account, I actually have $900 in my account. You can send them a check for $700 or what? No, you can send me a check for $800, right? So you paid 200 out of a 500, right?
And then you have a $500 voucher due in September, but you actually skipped out on 300. You can send them a check for 800 to make up that difference and they will catch it and they will do it. I I've done it. So you can always mix and match kind of that. But as long as you're planning, right, you wouldn't have known that without the voucher, without the voucher. You wouldn't know what you're paying, how to organize that, how to end up doing all of these things. Right? So you, you wouldn't be able to plan your money saying like, Oh, well I sent in 200 last time. I guess this time I'll try to send 300. Like, I don't know what's going on. Like, I'll just send them some money. Now you can always dice and splice this as long as you're giving them something, you're not going to pay the fee.
So as long as you are giving them some money in the quarters that they're asking for, or as long as you pay your vouchers, by the end of the year, you're good to go. You're you're doing it within the tax calendar year. So they're going to get all their money. They're not going to penalize you it's before the year turns like everything's fine. So here's another scenario. If you end up getting your vouchers, like you're going to get those vouchers in April, right? So the one that you pay in January would be after you've already done the vouchers for a year. So in April you get your vouchers and you just forget about them. You just like, go about your business, typing on a keyboard, working with your clients, getting on your calls, you know, doing all your stuff. And it becomes December. And you're like, Oh crap.
I totally forgot about all of my vouchers. Oh my gosh, you can send them all in December. And they will catch those techs. Like they will do it. They get a check and they cash it. I don't know who catches it at the IRS. Like you're sending them to the U S treasury department. Right. So you're sending your checks there and they're just going to cash them. As long as those checks or cash, as long as it's within the calendar year, as far as I have seen, obviously I'm not a tax professional because I'm a writer, but also, but I've done these, like I've done things. So as long as you send them their money, they're happy to cash it. They're happy to get, you know, put all your money in your tax account. So if you forget about it until December, as long as you hit in the year, you're fine.
You're, you're good to go. And even if you, like, let's say your tax account doesn't have enough for all the vouchers in December, let's say you're short, a thousand dollars, send all four vouchers and just spread out the money on the voucher checks, right? The voucher might say 500, but you give them two 50. Like we talked about before, but just send them what you've got. It's at least a prepayment it's removing the fee situation or the penalty situation. And it's making sure you've at least paid your taxes. So these aren't like forcing you to pay all these months, but it's really helpful to plan. And like, ideally you want to pay April, June, September, January, that's ideal. But if you're caught short on money, even if you have $50, like send in your tax account, send it, just give them their money. Even it like this year, for example I've held onto my tax vouchers.
I'm just going to be honest, I've held on to two of my tax vouchers because I, you know, it's been really uncertain times and tax things have been changing. Like they're like, Oh, actually we're saying everybody's taxes. Aren't doing April. And now they're doing October or September. Like they're just changing things so much that, you know, holding onto them made sense to me, it made sense for my finances. And it made sense for how to figure out how this money is going to work, how all these crazy events are going to play out. Right. and I will be setting them in December, right. It's December. I'm going to be sending them,
But it's all good.
So a matter of being smart with my money and smart with circumstances like with everybody going crazy and the whole summer was like, you can finally get unemployment as a freelance writer like that. What does that mean for taxes? And what does that mean for like, there's so many different things. Sometimes when things are crazy, it makes sense to hold onto those vouchers. So I have held onto two of them and I will be sending them this month, but they're going to get out that money will be going to taxes. I will make sure that they get all the money they need by the end of the year. And I don't have to worry about whether I'm going to get penalized or they're going to like miss a voucher or whatever, like they're going to get their money. So when you're doing your tax stuff, I always kind of recommend to other writers that like working with an accountant makes it a lot easier to manage your stuff, like for a few hundred dollars a year.
So like, if you save $20 a, that will pay more than pay for your taxes. Like if you work with an accountant, not H and R block, or they charge you like $500 to sit in a green chair and then like tell you stuff, you already know, like, not that like an actual tax accountant, so it's a few hundred dollars. And they actually help you plan all this stuff. They do all the magic. They give you all the bonuses, all the discounts. And then you've got these vouchers to manage your money over time. And like I said, I'm just going to say this just because you have, the voucher does not mean you have to pay it in the month that it is due. As long as you pay them. By the end of the year, you're usually in pretty good shape. I don't think there's ever been a time where they've been paid late, where like there's been penalties or issues, as long as you pay them within the calendar year, you're good to go.
Ideally, you want to space them out. So you're not dipping into your tax account and going crazy with extra products and money and stuff, but your tech stuff, your tech stuff gets a little easier when you have an accountant, when you have vouchers. And when you have like the profit first method that gives you that 15% tax account for your money. So that's kind of a little bit of an overview of taxes and it should kind of make it feel a little simpler. I know sometimes freelancers get real stuck about taxes because it's like this big gray cloud in the sky where we're like, well, how much do we owe? And it depends on how much money, like 15% covers you for a long time. Like if you read profit first fit, say he tells you to save 15% for up to 250 K a year.
Okay. So as long as you make $0 to 250 K 15% should probably be pretty good. But if you get caught, that's why we have our profit account, which is 5%. So as you move up, your profit number changes. So before 250 K it's 5%, and then it changes to 10%. It changes along the way. So if you get caught, you still have your profit account to pull from and you still have that backup option. So all of these things together, I think really make freelance writer taxes, more easy to maintain, easy to understand and easy to have like a Canik process for you to complete throughout the year. So I hope that was helpful. I'm going to go and see if there's any questions in there. And if you guys felt like this was helpful, if you guys felt like you got some value out of this share the video, like the video, subscribe to the channel. I'm going to give you guys a little update while I look for questions. So there they are. Oh, it didn't go. Oh, there it goes. Hi Minnie. Oh, do you now know the word pup date?
You do know the word. Pop dates. Good girl.
I can't believe you know the word pup date. You're so smart.
It'd be so smart. And you catch it. Oh, fair buddy. It hits you right in the head. There you go. Good job. You tried. You've tried. That's what happens when you turn 14, right?
Barry, you tell him, you say when you're 40
13, you don't do the work. Everyone does the work for you. Good job, buddy. Here we go. Good job. All right.
Let's see if there's any questions I'm going to say hi to people. Hi Getty. Hi, CVS. Sylvia. Remind me how to say that Camille's in here. Ooh, Camille, I'm going to share you. Cause you said super helpful tips. So Camille, tell me what you felt like was the most helpful for you so far in here?
Let's see. Ooh, she says, so
It says, this is so helpful. I feel like I've been flying by the seat of my pants with taxes. Or with my, yeah, with regard to tech. Yeah. That's that's often what happens. Right? We kind of fly by the seat of our pants. Just kind of hope it figures itself out. Hope we have enough money. Like, Oh, she has a good question here. So I think a lot of times we do that. We fly by the seat of our pants. But as long as you kind of get a process in place, like figure out how to do it, like profit first and accountant and having your account, like it makes it so much easier. So CVS says is that regardless of whether or not you're not LLC. So you're going to be, I did this before I was an LLC. So whatever, like all of the things, the vouchers and the profit first model and working with an accountant, I did all of that before I formed an LLC. So basically it would, instead of being filed under my
Hold on, what'd you do it? I mean, sneaky, good job,
Charlie, you did it. So regardless of whether or not you're an LLC, you can do this. So that means that you can call an accountant and get it all set up. It's going to file under your social security number instead of your EIN. So the difference that you get with your LLC is you're going to be filing taxes basically under your EIN and then also kind of like your social security number. So whatever, whatever you feel more comfortable with, like I just like having the LLC to have the EIN. So whatever you feel more comfortable with, you can create an LLC if you want, but all the tax stuff you can do, regardless of whether or not you're an LLC. So Tommy says I'm gonna load that up. Do you save money to pay your accountant? Yes. So I do this normally in my profit account actually.
So we do want to, Oh, that's attractive. Good job. You'd coughed. So yeah, so I do this in my profit account. So I make sure that my 5% of my income goes to my profit account. And then that money gets saved for paying my accountant, you know, the 200 or $300. I can't remember how much it is now, every year. So instead of pulling it from my tax account, which is where my, you know, like, let's say I made more money this year, which I did. So I want to have my tax account, make sure that it has enough money to pay the difference in April. So if I save extra money in there for my accountant, sometimes it gets garbled. Like to me, it gets a little garbled, but if I have it in my profit account, I know that that's money to pay for business expenses.
That profit account is to pay out like, if I want a software upgrade or if I want to buy a plot, like not Bible flat Lorne, but joining a platform or, you know, try to do a bunch of things where I'm trying to upgrade my business. The profit account helps you kind of pay for business expenses, right? There's also the op ex account. So your op ex accounts is your actual operating expenses, but this is more on a monthly basis. If you feel more comfortable saving your money in an op ex account. And all of these accounts are explaining profit first. So I know this sounds a little confusing at first, but if you read profit first by Mike Malco, it's, it's on Amazon. It'll make a lot of sense, but if you want to save the $200 in your op ex account, instead, you can do that.
But I always like to put it in either profit. You can put an op ex, but I like profit just because I already know in my mind that's for taxes. So let's see. Yes. 15%. So yeah. So what I see here is, yeah, so it's 15%, that's up to 250 K based on the profit first model. And then, like I said, like, let's say you make 200 K and you end up needing more money to pay taxes. So are 225 K whatever the tax thing is. So that's when you start pulling from that 5% profit account, so you have your profit account, that's kind of the buffer just in case for taxes. You need a little extra money for that. So, yeah, it's 15%. I know a lot of like, I used to save 20%. So for me, switching to the profit first model actually made me get more money back.
So every year I would save 20% and I think for one time I saved 25% by accident. But I save 20%, but then once I read profit first, I understood it a little more. So I did 15 and then that extra 5% for profit is 20% anyways. So for me, I ended up getting money back. Cause now I'm only doing 15% untouchable for taxes and 5% for profit that allows me to kind of mood around. Ooh. Yes. We've got some love for profit first product first is the best. I'm glad Casey agreed is profit. First is the best book. Stevia, C E V C Savia. Sev E yeah. Okay. There we go. Sorry. I'm sometimes really bad with names Savia, Savia. Okay. I'm going to remember like the number seven. Oh, that's smart. Okay. Top tips from Camille. Let's put this in here.
So it says the percentage to put aside and the process of payment. Yay. Okay, good. So that's what I was hoping for. I was hoping that the most important pieces here would be how much and how often, like how do we actually set up this system? Casey has another good question here. So why wouldn't I pay out of my op ex account? So my op ex account is basically paying my monthly subscriptions. It's paying for annual, like my website is paying for dub Sato, which is how I run my business. It's paying for like if I want to put my courses on teachable or if I want to pay my monthly flow desk subscription, like your op ex account is to play, pay your operating expenses on a month
To month
Basis. So for me, your tax stuff would always be in your taxes account. And then if you wanted to, like I mentioned, you can put your money to pay your accountant in your op ex account, but I always like to pull from profit. So your op ex account is just your operating expenses and it kind of helps you more manage how much you pay per month on the things that run your business. So your op ex account is like, how many subscriptions are you paying? What are you paying out to actually run your business? What are you doing in terms of like monthly things that need money or annual like, like my website renews, like in February or whatever, I don't remember. But your website renews, like that would be part of your OPEX expenses. So
We'd want to leave that one alone. Okay.
Yeah. So I, I think it depends on personal preference. So Tommy says he could go with either one, but he feels like he might put it in an op ex. So I think it matters how you actually want to manage it. So if you feel more comfortable in OPEX and just saving money there, then that's fine. But usually what happens is the profit first model is you're pulling op ex and you're pulling your own comp every two, every two weeks. So what you're supposed to do is pull a hundred percent out of OPEX and a hundred percent out of own comp and pay yourself with it every two weeks. So if you're doing that and always pulling money out of OPEX, I feel like that becomes more confusing with your profit account. You're only supposed to take 50% of that account every quarter, which I don't always do.
And with your tax account, you're only pulling from it to pay your quarterly vouchers. So for me, when I see money coming out of an account a lot, it's hard for me to say like, Oh, there needs to be a $200 minimum in here. It's just like confusing. So since you're pulling from OPEX all the time, I think it would be really easy to just dip into that extra 200 bucks. You're like, eh, I need it this month. I'll just do it. No, no. So for money that you're like the profit account. You're only pulling every quarter and you're only pulling 50%. So that means that even if you pull 50% and you know, you pull 50% all year, it's very likely you'll have 200 extra dollars in your profit account. By the time you pay your taxes, like the way the system works, that makes more sense.
But it would be a lot harder to keep pulling money from OPEX and not have the account be a zero or like dip into it or mess up the math. Or I just, I feel like it's a lot more sticky to put it in that account since the money was there all the time. So yeah. I always like using an accountant. So I see there's like a few comments in here. So yeah. I always like using an accountant because it's just a lot easier to have someone who understands the code, understands any changes, understands what works for freelance business owners. They've kind of got it all figured out in terms of helping you get the most out of your tax money. And then also helping you map out how to get your money. Right? So that's all the things I like. So any last questions we're a little over, but we started a little late today. I have, I have a friend down here. She moved. Maybe I can get her to move back up. There she goes, we'll do one more update. Just cause just cause it's Friday.
All right. Can you move over here though? You move over here. Can you turn it right? Good job tree for you. Good job bear. You're just, you're beautiful. And, and, and dignified at 14. Charlotte. I like your foster jowls. There you go. All right.
Yeah. I also like this comment. Okay. One more thing before we hop off, I like this comment by Tommy really like a lot. So yeah, it's always really nice to have an actual human that you can talk to instead of a robot like turbo tax. So like I've had trouble with her TurboTax or other kind of programs in the past. And it's a lot easier to just talk to a human, like, why am I getting charged this? Or why is it this way? Or how do I do this? Or what should I, like, I forgot the place to send my voucher. Like, you know, if you do TurboTax or you do a robotic thing, you're not going to get vouchers. They're going to be like, good job. You paid your taxes. So your next year, like, that's it. They're not giving you support.
They're not answering questions. Like, I guess you can. They have like real people now. I haven't used TurboTax for quite some time. I know they have like real people that you can talk to now, but it's not the same as someone knowing your business, knowing your finances, seeing the difference that you're making and saying like, Hey, you know, you cracked this thing. You might want to watch out for this, like next year, like, it looks like you're growing. Maybe you might be moving into this tax category, watch out for this blah, blah, blah. It's way different with someone who is actually invested in your business, succeeding and helping you with all the money management piece that goes with taxes. So, all right. Any more questions? Okay. I think we're good. So if you guys fell and found this helpful, make sure you hit the like button subscribe and share this video.
I know taxes can be a real kind of like dark cloud thing that follows us around that we don't understand. So I'm hoping that this was breaking it down a little bit for you guys. And if you need a tax accountant, Charlotte says that she might be going into, so you might be able to hire her, but you know, she's, she's just waiting for the tree dos. She's just sitting there like, Oh, there's no tree. That was, but I liked the licks. Thank you. All right. I hope this was helpful. See you guys next week and yeah. Thanks for appreciate all the good questions. Bye.
________
Hi there! I’ve got you covered for all things freelance writing every Friday at 12 pm CT (10 am PT/1 pm ET). We’ll go over a quick bite tip to help you move forward in your business, then I’ll answer any and all of your questions; including those on marketing, money, mindset, mental health, and of course, business.
So glad you’re able to join me, and I’m looking forward to learning more about you and your freelance writing career!
________
Trying to figure out how to price your work for what it’s worth? Check out my FREE Pricing Guide at the top of the page!
Need some fantastic contract and marketing templates to make your freelance writing biz run as effectively and efficiently as possible? See my Templates!
Want to stay in touch for weekly detailed advice plus updates on new freebies and courses? Join my email list!
Want to follow me for inspiration, tips, and to stay connected?
So psyched you’re joining me on this livestream adventure!
