taxes (yay another tax question) for noobie

[kaitanium]

so i decided im a big boy now and will not let my dad fill out my tax forms anymore. but being a first timer, i have no idea what to do.

1040A, EZ, regular???
schedule C
4562
8829
etc holy smoke. i know they dont purposely make this complicated but how and where in the world should a noobie like me start?

im not married, i dnot make over $100K (or anywhere near that for that matter) i dont own a house, i do work out of my house, i do travel by car, i did take photo classes/workshops and traveled for those, i did buy a ton of gear, and after all is said and done i probably made little to no profits this year.

do i file my personal taxes since i have a 8-5 regular job and then another one for my wedding photography business? oh man im so new at this i dont even know what questions to ask. any help appreciated!

do i file for an EIN? does it even matter at this point?

[tracknut]

I suppose there's a few ways you could go about this. But assuming your goal is to be able to do the taxes yourself, my recommendation would be to use a CPA the first year, and then you have a copy of your 2008 tax return, which is professionally done. For your 2009 taxes, unless something radical changes, you can sort of use the 2008 return as a template to follow. Another option is to get something like Turbo Tax, my understanding is that it will walk you through questions, and it will come up with the right forms based on your answers.

In either case, I feel your pain :)

By the way, I'm in the Sacramento area, if you need a good CPA I'd be glad to refer you to mine.

Dave

[Medic85]

TurboTax online.

[kaitanium]

In either case, I feel your pain :)

By the way, I'm in the Sacramento area, if you need a good CPA I'd be glad to refer you to mine.

Dave

he/she any good? decent priced? =) PMed you

i checked turbo tax 4 hours ago but their site was down...havent had the chance to go back yet.

[thexrickx]

Turbo Tax Online is the best. I Have used it for 8 or 9 years now. I even went to H&R Block one year... After deciding that the few hundred dollars they wanted to charge me was too much, I used Turbo Tax and still got more money back.

[kaitanium]

ah i see. i suppose filing for yourself is easy right? but what about if you have a small business and such.

[watt100]

so i decided im a big boy now and will not let my dad fill out my tax forms anymore. but being a first timer, i have no idea what to do.

1040A, EZ, regular???
schedule C
4562
8829
etc holy smoke. i know they dont purposely make this complicated but how and where in the world should a noobie like me start?
im not married, i dnot make over $100K (or anywhere near that for that matter) i dont own a house, i do work out of my house, i do travel by car, i did take photo classes/workshops and traveled for those, i did buy a ton of gear, and after all is said and done i probably made little to no profits this year.
do i file my personal taxes since i have a 8-5 regular job and then another one for my wedding photography business? oh man im so new at this i dont even know what questions to ask. any help appreciated!
do i file for an EIN? does it even matter at this point?

so you actually received some money from clients for photography?
do you expect to sell more photos and/or services next year?

There are tax advantages and different filing requirements if you know the correct taxable earnings or loss for this year. Turbotax could be one good option, try it first or a free program like www.taxact.com A tax professional could save even more if you had real profits (taking into account depreciation, travel mileage, etc.) and if you intend to make more next year.
(at this point the "EIN" is the same as your SS # )

[hard12find]

Turbo tax is excellent for your situation,

[kaitanium]

i most likely didnt make any profits as everything went into classes, gear, etc this past year. most likely. im not sure.

i guess i just want to hire a CPA or something this year just so that i can see what to do.

but what turbo tax do i even use? theres like a couple of them.

[hypertech]

OK, you have more than one tax issue.

If you took money from people for services or prints, you may need to turn in sales tax. This is something you need to figure out so call your state sales tax office.

Second, if you made money (or tried) and you intend to do so in the future (ie you really are running a business), then all your expenses and mileage, etc are deductible. You can use a 179 deduction to knock off your income from photography and all your other income too for that matter if you ran a significant loss this year.

Any of the basic versions should include Schedule C which is all you need if you were a sole proprietor.

Basically, you need to know if you are a business and you need to operate like one before you claim any business related expenses on your taxes.