On today’s episode of the Unf*ck Your Biz with Braden podcast I share my May profit report, breaking down my revenue, expenses, and if I hit my monthly goals. If you haven't already, check out episode 225 where I give April's profit report and share my May goals.

My goal for the year was to hit $15,000 a month in revenue. I hit that goal in January and have not hit it since. Doing these profit reports not only, hopefully, provide you insight into the profit of a fellow business owner, they also help me review my own profit and also get me a better understanding of my baseline revenue. To me, baseline revenue is the number we can hit by doing whatever it is we do consistently every week. I encourage every business owner to learn and track their baseline number. For me, these consistent tasks are putting out a podcast episode each week, sending out a weekly email, posting a social post for the podcast, a mild average amount of Facebook interaction, one speaking...

On today's episode of the Unf*ck Your Biz podcast I discuss everyone’s favorite topic - sales tax. 

Coming up on March 14th at 9am PST I am hosting an Open House. I'm calling it the anti-webinar and if you've been curious about how to get access to all my resources or work with me, I'm going to be sharing a new offer in order for you to have me as your tax and legal friend on demand (and this offer will include access to information on sales tax). Unlike 1:1 legal services, you'll have all the tools and resources you need at your fingertips at an extremely accessible price point. Click here to register for the Open House. 

The tricky thing about sales tax is that it varies state to state and it can feel like a total mystery to everyone. We know we pay sales tax when we buy stuff at the store, but how does it apply in the context of our business? 

Sales tax has nothing to do with income taxes. Read that again. Sales tax is a...

Today on the podcast we are reairing episode 63 of the podcast where my friend, and sales tax expert, Amy Monroe shares the five steps to manage small business sales taxes.

1.  Where do you need to collect tax (do I have nexus)?

This can depend on the size of your business and the services/goods you sell. You will need to know if you need a seller's permit. 

2. How you register for a seller's permit

You will also need to search if there may be a secretary of state requirement.

3. What are the sales tax rates and how do you collect them?

Often the sales tax rate is based on the location of the buyer. You need to make sure you are also collecting any additional local, county, city and district taxes.

4. Know and manage taxability and exemptions

If you provide goods and services it's important to know what is and isn't subject to sales tax and when/if they need to be bundled together or specifically stated. The exemptions may be more nuanced than you need.

5....

When a business is in the business of selling something, chances are they have a sales tax filing obligation. Sales tax is a consumptive tax, based on consumer consumption of tangible personal property.

As a business, you act as an agent on behalf of your state to collect the tax. The tax belongs to the state, not to you. Every state is different and even every locality can be different. There are local tax rates, but the state collects everything. You file it all on one form and then it's up to the state based on the form to send those tax dollars to the local government.

If you are running a business, you want to visit the state tax website to learn more about your area's basic tax rules. Failing to pay the sales tax and keeping it for yourself is illegal and can result in jail time. It's critical to keep record of your sales tax as part of your bookkeeping, consider keeping the sales tax money in its own bank account so that's ready to pay each quarter.

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On this episode of the podcast I chat with guest and former Unf*ck Your Biz student Jen Draper about how she got out of the "Oh Shit" cycle.

This episode is brought to you by my new FREE Masterclass, "The Most Common Legal and Tax Mistake at Each Stage of Business and How to Avoid Them." This Masterclass will cover if it's time to go from a sole proprietorship to an LLC or an LLC to a S-Corp and how to properly run an S-Corp. You'll learn how to get more profitable in a snap and put your taxes on auto-pilot as well as how to manage the growth of your business without fear of IRS hate mail or lawsuits. Click here to sign up for the Masterclass.

Dietician Jen Draper found herself in the "oh shit" cycle of owing back taxes and juggling those payments, savings, and loan pay-off. Jen wasn't sure what to pay first and not sure how to pay it all at once. When Jen joined the Unf*ck Your Biz course she learned that she wasn't the only one who owed back taxes and wasn't alone...

On this episode of the podcast my guest, Amy Monroe, answers small business owners' sales and use tax questions.

This episode is brought to you by my FREE Tax Challenge. Taxes suck but we all have to file them. I'll walk you through the 5 steps you need to get your tax documents organized and ready to file. Sign up for this free challenge.

1. How to calculate sales and use tax for something that has a service and product component to it. - submitted by Reena Borwankar

For the answer to this, and other sales tax questions, check out Amy on episode 21 of the podcast.

2. What if you have your sales tax ID but have not made any sales? Do you truly submit $0? - submitted by Jamie

Yes, it’s called a zero return. You may get asked to file if a lot of time goes by and you have not filed anything. If you do get one of these letters you will need to file the past returns. Some states will charge you late fees for not filing. If you are filing those zero returns...

On this episode, I answer the question "Are digital files considered tangible items subject to sales tax?" We're building on what we learned in Episode 21 of the podcast, discussing tangible versus intangible goods, and covering how the rules vary state by state. 

Today's question comes to us from the Braden's Besties Facebook group (come join us and ask your questions today!). 

On this episode, I answer the question "I just sold my first photo album and I collected sales tax. Now what?"

The short answer: Check your state requirements. Most states will allow you to file you online and require you to do so once per year, quarter, or month.

If you need more sales tax info, make sure to circle back episode 21.

I’d also love for you to join the Tax Challenge happening in next month to help you get all your docs ready for tax season.

Episode Transcript

022: (00:01)
Hello and welcome to episode 22 of the unfuck your best podcast. As always, this is your host, Braden. Very excited to have you here today. Today we will be talking a little bit more about sales tax. Get super excited. So last Thursday on the podcast, I interviewed my friend Amy, who is an absolute expert when it comes to sales tax. So we talked about sales tax, a one Oh one. So this topic is of interest to you, or maybe it's not an interest. You could give a shit less about sales tax, but...

On this episode, I chat with Amy Monroe about the 101 on sales tax and how to get started understanding the rules as a creative small biz owner and entrepreneur.

Episode Transcript

Braden: (00:01)
Hello and welcome to episode 21 of the unfuck your vis podcast. As always, I am your host, Braden. Super excited to have you here. If you could see the setup we have right now, it would probably be funny, I'll should upload a screenshot to the show notes. Amy and I are like snuggled closely in my office because luckily we both work at the same office building so it makes recording really easy. Uh, what we're going to do today is Amy is a sales tax, just like master mind person. She knows all the things that are needed to know about sales tax. So she is going to walk us through this title episode, laying the groundwork for sales tax. So do a little bit more of a proper introduction. Amy Monroe is a partner or employee. I'm an employee, an employee, but like my boss would love it if I was...

On this episode, I answer the question "Am I supposed to be adding/charging sales tax to my virtual assistant invoices?"

Episode Transcript

Braden: (00:00)
Hello friend and welcome to episode 20 of the unfuck your biz podcast. Today we will be tackling another question just like we do every Tuesday. If you are new to the podcast. The way this works is I take questions in my Facebook group so you can join and ask one, it's called Brayden's besties, B, R, a, D, E. N. so search that on Facebook, join the group and you can ask a question that I may eventually tackle here on the podcast. So today's question is, am I supposed to be adding slash charging sales tax to my VA invoices? I am in California. If you don't know, VA stands for virtual assistant. So virtual assistants will typically do any kind of small business management tasks. They work on social media management, they can do email management, calendaring, all that kind of stuff. Some graphic design, you get the picture.

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