You open your mail in October and there’s a notice from the IRS. Underpayment penalty. You owe an extra $800 on top of your regular tax bill because you didn’t make quarterly estimated payments. Or you made them but calculated wrong. This happens to NJ business owners constantly. You’re focused on landing clients, managing cash flow, hiring people, and keeping the business running. Quarterly tax estimates feel like busy work until the penalties show up.…
A guy walked into my office last month, handed me a shoebox full of receipts, and said he’d been running his landscaping business for three years. He figured he owed about $8,000 in taxes based on what he made. Two hours later, after going through his actual expenses and talking about how he runs his operation, we got that number down to $2,400. He’d been missing over $5,000 in legitimate deductions every single year. This…