Just a quick reminder that quarterly estimated tax payments are due this Friday, June 15th. If you have income that’s not subject to withholding (e.g., self-employment, interest, dividends, gains from the sale of assets, rental income, etc.) then you might need to make quarterly payments to avoid an underpayment penalty.

You can either use IRS From 1040-ES or the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System. I’ve always used the former, although I should probably check out the latter. And don’t forget that you might also need to make estimated payments for your state taxes. If you’re looking for a good source of general information on estimated taxes, check out Fairmark.com’s Estimated Taxes 101.

Last week I asked for help with a somewhat complex tax situation. Here we are a week later, and fortuantely I feel as if I have a better handle on the situation. For the finer details, it’s probably best to go back and read my original call for help and then come back here for details on the resolution. [more]

I have a tax-related question that I’ve been having trouble getting answered, so I thought I’d throw it out here in hopes that someone can provide any insight… Besides, I’ve searched high and low and haven’t been able to find an answer online, so if we can get this sorted out here, it’ll be available for others to stumble across. This question actually first came up in the comments to my article on how to prioritize your retirement contributions and I’ve been struggling with it ever since. [more]

Today is not only the deadline for filing taxes, it’s also the due date for the first quarterly estimated tax payment of 2007. Technically, federal income tax is a pay-as-you-go tax, meaning that you’re supposed to pay into the system as you receive income during the year. For a regular job, this usually isn’t a problem, as your tax withholding will take care of it. But in the case of self-employment income (or any other income that isn’t subject to withholding) you’ll need to file estimated taxes. [more]

Now that our taxes are done, I know exactly how much I can contribute to my SEP-IRA for 2006. The great thing about having an account at Vanguard (aside from the low fees) is that they make it so easy to make investment contributions — it literally took about 3 minutes to log in and transfer the funds from our linked bank account to my SEP-IRA. Since I’ll be tracking our self-employment income more closely over the upcoming year, and filing estimated every quarter, I may accelerate my contributions a bit by making them as we go along instead of waiting to contribute the full amount come tax time next year.

Don’t forget to make your 2006 IRA contributions before next Monday!

Given the recent uptick in our income due to my new job and our growing self-employment income, I’ve recently been thinking of ways to reduce our 2007 tax liability. The first step, of course, is to contribute to my employer’s basic retirement plan, which is held at Fidelity. But… I want to do way more than that. [more]

Not long after registering our LLC, we received a solicitation in the mail from an entity called National Companies Register Corporation (NCRC) asking us to make a payment of $587.00 within the next 14 days. In return, they promised to list our company information on their website at www.companies-register.us (you’ll have to copy/paste to check it out — I’m not giving them a live link). Who cares? Your state maintains the official record of your business, and when I visit NCRC’s site, I’m greeted by nothing more than a login screen with a giant ‘Click Here to Pay’ button. [more]

Continuing along the path toward the separation of our business and personal finances, we have are now the proud new owners of a business credit card. I previously posted a list of business credit cards with signup bonuses, and that’s where we started. As a reminder, you don’t have to have an actual business to apply for these cards and take advantage of the — simply use your name for the business name and leave the Federal Tax ID blank.

We first applied for (and received) the Amex Business Gold Rewards Card. While this card has a $125 annual fee after the first year, it also came with $150 in signup bonuses. Thus, we’re not likely to keep this card beyond the first year.

Our choice for the longer term is the CitiBusiness Card with ThankYou Network which not only offers rewards, but also has no annual fee.

There are, of course, other options out there. For example, the Amex Starwood Preferred Guest Business Card, which offer $100 in signup bonuses, but has a $30 annual fee after the first year. Thus, you can make a good bit of jingle by applying for these cards, but you probably won’t want to keep them beyond a year.

Truth be told, we don’t really need a business credit card, but having one will make the bookkeeping a bit easier (anything charged to that card will be a business expense, so we won’t have to sort through expenditures at tax time). It also helps with the substantiating the independence of our business endeavors, which is important when it comes to maintaining the liability protection offered by an LLC.

Whether you’re dabbling in self-employment, or you run your own full-blown business, here’s a good example of why you might want to dissociate your business address from your home address… A process server showed up on our doorstep on a Sunday morning awhile back. What a nice Sunday surprise! No, they didn’t show up looking to serve papers on my wife or me. Rather, they were looking for the guy that used to own our house. As it turns out, he’s a home builder, and someone is suing him. While his business partner was listed as the registered agent, they ended up using his (our!) address as the physical address of their business. While we got a good laugh out of this, it certainly reinforced the idea of using a P.O. Box for business-related mail, and also using something besides your house as the physical address of your business whenever possible.

If you’re starting your own business, you might want to apply for an employer identification number (EIN). A few weeks ago, I did just that, and I thought I’d run through the process here for all to see. [more]