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Starting and running a business, self-employment, business banking, credit cards, taxes, and legal setup. Get the money side right from day one.
Chase doesn’t publish the rule, but applicants’ reported approvals and denials show that it counts cards from your personal credit report. That means the personal cards you’ve opened decide whether you get a business one. Chase counts every credit card…
The rest of the form can look built for corporations, with fields for business type, annual revenue, and years in business. Each field has an honest answer for a sole proprietor, and the Small Business Administration says you’re already one…
Business banking is a little different from consumer banking. Our master list of the best online banks around is surprisingly short on business checking accounts with no monthly maintenance fees, minimum balance requirements, or monthly transaction limits. Also, most business…
Most of the best bank account promotions on the market right now cater exclusively to consumers. Indeed, many of the United States’ best online banks seem to favor personal account holders rather than business owners. But not all banks shortchange small-business owners. If you’re…
Once your net self-employment earnings reach $400 a year, you owe a 15.3% tax for Social Security and Medicare in addition to income tax, and no employer withholds it. Set aside part of every payment and send it to the IRS each quarter, or have extra withheld from a W-2 job, so April never brings a bill you can’t cover.
If you earn self-employment income, let an expense and mileage tracking app record every business drive and receipt as it happens. A log made at the time holds up better with the IRS than one rebuilt in April, and the trips you’d otherwise forget are worth more in tax savings than the app costs.
If you earn self-employment income, run your business expenses through a business credit card and keep personal spending off it. The statement becomes a running record of your business costs at tax time, and you earn rewards on spending you’d do anyway. Pay the balance in full each month.
A solo 401k lets a self-employed person with no employees contribute twice, once as the employee and once as the employer, for a combined cap nearly 10 times the IRA limit. If your business earns more than you can shelter in an IRA, open one and fund the employee side first.
Open Lili’s free Core account if you only need business banking, and pay $35 a month for Smart if you want invoicing, bookkeeping, and tax forms in the same app. Skip Premium, whose extra $20 a month over Smart buys a metal card and faster support rather than more tools.
Most business bank accounts charge a monthly fee, pay nothing on your balance, and offer little beyond the basics. Grasshopper Bank is built differently. It’s a federally chartered digital bank that pays interest on checking, offers 1% cash back on…
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