Music Mondays - Time
Time
How many of you remember Darius Rucker as “Hootie” from Hootie and the Blowfish rather than just Darius Rucker the country music singer? I was a big Hootie and the Blowfish fan; and this song was one of my favorites from them. It’s a reminder to me that time can be a good thing or bad thing in our lives; and I am hearing this quite a bit in my mind as we are right in the middle of the holiday season and quickly approaching the end of the year.Fortunately, as we have focused less on stuff for the holidays every year, the holiday shopping season doesn’t stress me out as it used to. We are pretty much done with all of our shopping and as of this past weekend the home is decorated and festive for our holiday enjoyment.
What is weighing on me the most as far as time is feeling prepared to close out the year financially. As a business owner, I have a number of responsibilities, and one of the greatest is paying my taxes and making sure that my company’s financial pictures are in shape. For business purposes, the IRS looks at all activities within a calendar year so this means that I have just about three weeks left to the year to make sure the financial house is in order.
Time to Get My Financial House in Order
As part of my year-end financial review, I reached out to my accountant to work on our estimated taxes for the year. Since we only have a few weeks left to the year, we pretty much know what our returns will look like; and if there are any changes we need to make before the end of the year, we will have the time to do it.Since I started The Financial Gym this year, there are a number of considerations that we have to take as far as start up expenses and other costs that could reduce our tax bill; and we’re weighing all of those options now. We also have three other LLCs whose income statements we’re reviewing for possible changes.Fortunately we have until we file our taxes to make retirement account decisions, but we do need to make sure that the contributions to my son’s 529 account are all settled before the end of the calendar year to be considered for this calendar year.I’m all about saving money and making smart choices, but sometimes I believe that you have to spend money to make or save money and part of spending money is hiring a great accountant who makes sure that you make smart choices during the time you need to make them.
Is Your Financial House in Order?
As much as I would just like to worry about the holidays, I can’t neglect the financial considerations that need to take place by the end of the year. Are you looking through your finances as we head into New Year’s? Do you have an idea about what your tax scenario should look like in April?If you haven’t started to think about this, I highly encourage you to do it. If you’re thinking about starting to work with an accountant, now is the time to engage them not only to make sure you don’t miss year-end opportunities but to make sure you engage them before their lives get crazy in tax season. If you do the taxes yourself, run some quick projections on what you might expect.Believe me, as a big holiday nut, I feel like a Scrooge even bringing up taxes when I would rather bring up mistletoe, but I would hate to see you miss an opportunity to take advantage of the time you have before the end of the year to make sure your financial house is in order. It took me a few hours to organize mine and now I’m ready to enjoy the rest of my time enjoying the season.