Customer Reviews

Tax Savvy for Small Business : Year-Round Tax Advice for Small Business (2nd Ed

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Well, let's get right to the point. This is a stellar small business survival guide and it deserves a+. I've practiced administrative tax law for nearly two decades now and believe me - I've read seemingly everything that comes out in this area of law.

Tax Savvy is well-indexed, fun to read and covers everything any small businessperson might need to know to. Now even "mom and pop" can acquire the tax savvy necessary to generate more bottom-line dollars.

Here's the reason I recommend it to all my business clients: Following Daily's advice takes all the risk out of tax-planning decisions. After all, he's the man who literally wrote the book (Stand Up to the IRS) about "battling the beast". He knows what's legal, safe and sane.

Benefit example: the very first thing I looked up in Mr. Daily's book was in the RETIREMENT PLANS section. Just one paragraph in that section saved me, personally, a literal TON of dough.

This one's a winner for the little guy . . . no ivory tower legalese or attorney mumbo gumbo - just the facts, mam. Plain and simple. Thanks Nolo! This review refers to the paperback edition.

This book is really complete and will be useful to professional tax preparers and those who already know about tax law. It is definitely not for the beginner (which I am) who wants some basic information. I found two other books that were much more applicable for me -- Minding Her Own Business and Small Time Operator. They talk about taxes in a language I can understand.

This guide is different from the many tax guides out there from big names like Ernst & Young, etc. because it is more focussed on small businesses and you get the most relevant information in the most concise fashion. There in lies the limitation of this great book. You may have to refer to the other tax guides if your particular situation is too unique.

But the conciseness and focussed approach was extremely helpful in clarifying a lot of points for me. I had tried reading several of the bigger guides (with three times as many pages as this book) and gotten confused because it was too much information. So when I saw the Nolo guide, I was pleasantly surprised that every topic in the book was relevant to me as a small business owner! It was perfect for my needs. I now started understanding the very same topics I had so much difficulty following in the other books. For example - I was trying to research the differences between S Corporations and LLCs. When I opened this Nolo guide, I went straight to the chapter on LLCs and read the section - Comparing LLCs with Other Entities. In one sentence I knew the difference between these two entities! According to the book, the basic difference being that you can allocate income and expenses disproportionately (to share ownership) in an LLC but not in a S Corporation! Wow! I liked the speed with which I could find this critical piece of information I was researching.

The book is divided into 6 parts - The Basics (Business Income and Tax Deductible Expenses, Recordkeeping and Accounting, etc.), The Form of Your Business (Sole Proprietorships, Partnerships, S Corporations, etc.), Thinking Small (Family Businesses, Microbusinesses and Home-Based Businesses), Fringe Benefits (Retirement Plans etc.), Buying or Selling a Business, and Dealing with the IRS. There isn't a single page that is irrelevant.

If you have very advanced questions, you are better off looking through a bigger book but you would benefit tremendously by reading this book first. It will give you a firm grounding in the basics across the board. Good luck!

Although not the most complete guide (IRS publications give more info for free), it is the first book I have seen which reviews the tax laws as they pertain to different entities - corporations, partnerships, LLCs etc.

This is a great book. It is well organized, well documented, clearly written, and should be used to make your relationship with a tax professional more profitable. However, as mentioned in another review, you should have your tax planning and strategies reviewed by a tax professional (I prefer a CPA) who understands where you are NOW financially and where you are GOING. The purpose of a book like this is not to help you go it alone as some other moron posted, but to help you work WITH your CPA.

The material contained in Daily's "Stand Up to the IRS" helped to save me [money] this past year! Now, I just got my copy of "Tax Savvy For Small Business" and here's what I like about it:

I'm not a tax professional. I am a small businessman. I can't always call my CPA with every little question. That would cost a fortune. But for instance, this morning I'm looking at Daily's treatment of "independent contractor" status, a problem that keeps coming back to me time and time again. Is this temp secretary an employee or can I save a few bucks and call her an independent contractor? How about the guy I hire to wash the windows out front every week? The cybergeek kid next door who earns a few extra bucks working on my computers for me?

I do not want to bother my CPA with those questions. But I see here in Chapter 5 an easy to read list of factors I should consider in risking it. I like that. It's easy and I need easy. And there's a hundred other subjects simply covered as well.

I don't want to be a tax pro, that's what my CPA is for. I just want to know enough to talk to my CPA and, at the same time, not always need to call him.

One thing that bugs me about a lot of self-help financial books is you can't find what you're looking for. This book has a good index. That's important to save me time and help me find what I'm looking for. Good index. Good book.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!! This book has saved my business thousands of dollars! Amazingly it is both comprehensive and accessible. Daily is hugely knowlegable and a great writer. He lays out strategy after strategy to minimize wasted time and maximize profit. I thought I knew what I was doing before but this book has opened up whole new worlds of opportunity for me. I better learned what I can and can't deduct, how to take advantage of fringe benefits, how to reduce IRS penalties and much more. Tax Savvy for Small Business is literally worth its weight in gold.

A must have book for any small business owner. Full of useful, informative and easy to understand tax help. This book more than paid for itself less than a week after purchase.

Now that tax time is here, I have just discovered attorney Daly's "Tax Savvy" self-help book. It answers, or helps to answer, most of my tax questions and offers useful practical advice. It is well-organized, with topics easy to find and read, without any confusing legalese.

I've read some of the other reviews and I agree to a certain extent that the author is general with some topics that he discusses. But in all due fairness, most professionals that write about their professions whether it may tax matters or law matters, can't possibly describe specific situation when writing a book for an audience that is looking for general matters. I believe they do so in a general fashion, in order to cover the major points listed to fit the majority of the issues and questions that would arise. If your situation needs a more specific answer or answers than what is discussed here, I would strongly consider consulting with a knowledgable and experienced attorney and/or accountant/CPA to discuss your sitiuation on a more specific basis.

With that being said, this book is a good book if your just starting out, and you want to learn the taxation aspect of a business as far as what you must do according to the IRS and what you could do to lower your taxable income legally. Most new business owners might not be aware of these gold nuggets that are listed here in the book for you to take advantage of.