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Written by : Antony Hogle |
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hey this is attorney elizabeth potts weinstein and today we're going to talk about calendar year versus fiscal year for your business which one should you use so calendar year for for your tax year for your legal year is the default that's january 1st through december 31st that's the default for any business that's the default for any individual for you keeping track of your finances and filing your taxes however there's another option which is called the fiscal year probably heard fiscal year in reference to big corporations and things like that if you've ever worked at a big company a lot of them do not follow the calendar year to do their taxes we're going to go into why you might want to do that but the fiscal year is just another year that you pick it is another 12-month year that you use to keep track of all your finances and to file your taxes and to calculate whether or not you've made a profit and do you owe any taxes on that profit either individually or the corporation or llc or whatever it is now you can elect to be one or the other the default is calendar year but you can elect to have a fiscal year you cannot go back and forth all the time okay you need to pick one or the other you can you can switch it later but you have to have a reason they do not want you messing around with this because it's just a logistical nightmare since calendar year is the default that's what works for a lot of smaller businesses that's kind of the most easy thing because you don't have to actually elect something and that's the year that the irs uses you also may have a calendar year personally which doesn't have to be but if you have a calendar year personally it makes sense to have your business line up with your personal taxes so all the paperwork works otherwise it can it's more complicated there's also certain situations where you have to do the calendar year one of them is if you don't keep books or records which i really hope you're keeping books and records as a business owner but that's the other situation is if you're not doing any bookkeeping which you should be doing bookkeeping so that one shouldn't apply to you so why should you elect to do a fiscal year since it's not the default it's a bit more complicated because you have to actually do something about it here's why there are certain businesses where it does not make sense to just use the calendar year because it will create more of a mess than having a more complicated tax situation because you're doing a different year so for example let's say almost all your business is with the federal government the federal government has a fiscal year it's october 1st through september 30th you may want your fiscal year to match up with the federal government's fiscal year or if you had you know 90 of your businesses with some corporation who has that fiscal year whatever just to make everything easier because they're going to be giving you all the stuff based upon that year and you want stuff to match up the other situation that comes up a lot if you're selling products for example is that you do a huge amount of your business in december you're selling people stuff to have for holidays and for you to have to close out your books on december 31st is going to be a nightmare because people are still doing returns you're still doing fulfillment for people who order late the thing is you want your income and the expenses that match up with that income to be in the same tax year if it's humanly possible it's never going to be perfect but you want it to be if it's possible so if you have some seasonal business where all your businesses in the summer or all your businesses in the winter or whatever it is you want your fiscal year to kind of wrap around that seasonal time frame so the income and expenses that go together are matched up so you could actually get a real determination on whether or not you're making a profit i recommend that before you decide to go with a fiscal year you talk to a tax preparer an accountant somebody both to make sure you're filling out the forms right um and also to make sure that that actually makes sense for you you do probably want an expert opinion on that because they're the ones who are going to be helping you with the taxes and things and you want to make sure that they also think that it is a good idea and what specific dates you pick for your business now as i said before you cannot switch back and forth you need to pick something and go with it you can switch in the future but you have to get the irs's permission to do so and you have to have a good reason for switching typically it's going to be because something changed in your business and what you're doing and it makes more sense to do so but you i can't go back and forth on an annual basis so how do you actually elast the fiscal year now for some of you you're going to do it when you file your form that makes your business be an s corporation so let's say you created a corporation or you created an llc and you want them it to be taxed as an escort when you file your form 2553 which i did a video on and i can link to it you are going to elect your tax year which will be calendar year as a default or a fiscal year and you have to give them a reason why that makes sense which you know if it's your reason is because the season out in your business you'll put that and you'll pick your fiscal year so you set that up at that time there's other some other exceptions that i'm not going to go through i'm going to link the instructions for the form that you have to file for the specific exemptions because a lot of them are very esoteric and you'd want to talk to your accountant about what those exceptions apply to you but otherwise you filed this form called the form one one two eight and i'm going to link to that form and to the instructions for that form so you can check it out but generally speaking you're saying what you know you tell them then your name and address and all that kind of stuff you tell them what tax year you want and that you describe the nature of your business which is going to support the fact that you need this different tax year this fiscal year and you're going to go into requesting whether or not the irs will approve this there's some automatic approvals and then there are ones where you're actually asking the irs to do a ruling i'm not going to do a video going through all these different details because you it really depends upon the circumstances of your particular situation and where you are and this is where i recommend you talk to your tax person your accountant to look at exactly what your fiscal year should be and how you're going to support it and get this ruling for you you want someone who's who can practice before the irs does not have to be a lawyer there are people who are tax practitioners who have been admitted to do tax stuff with the irs and that's the kind of person you want to help you figure this out if you have to get a ruling for changing to a particular fiscal year so the short version of it is most people most mostly small businesses a calendar year is the
Thanks for your comment Jean Bessick, have a nice day.
- Antony Hogle, Staff Member
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Thanks rireralerA your participation is very much appreciated
- Antony Hogle
About the author
I've studied industrial sociology at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in Stevens Point and I am an expert in non-fiction writing. I usually feel smart. My previous job was nuclear equipment operation technician I held this position for 19 years, I love talking about motor sports and marbles. Huge fan of Scott Disick I practice marathon swimming and collect rocks.
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