Loma is live for Tax Q&A!

Okay, I am going live. Um, got a few minutes where I want to answer any questions if anybody has any questions, like for the next tax deadline, which is the Texas sales tax filing requirement, April 22nd, because normally it's due on the 20th, but the next filing— the 20th is on a weekend, so that falls to the following business day, which is on Monday. I wanted to see if anybody has any questions. I did not stop to send out an invitation to the— to my folks that are signed up for my newsletter, but I was just also kind of curious if anybody that's a subscriber would get a notification and if they pop in if they have any questions. And it doesn't have to be about just sales tax, it can be about Texas franchise taxes, which the laws just changed this year. It could be about the FinCEN BOI requirement, the Beneficial Ownership Information Report that you have to file starting this year. It could be about your IRS taxes, whether you already filed them or you still gotta file them and you're late. You know, it could be, you know, if you're a sole prop, a single-member LLC. I have a little bit of experience with the S-corps. I'm still building on that right now. But yeah, I'm just here in case anybody wants to pop in and ask any questions. And we'll see how that goes. Starting out with just— I wonder if it's possible to— hmm, let's see. Can I? Oh, I guess not. So, huh, that means I have to go completely off of memory because I am out and about And I just had a few minutes that I wanted to pop in to answer some questions, but I don't have any like points of reference since I'm using the phone where I normally look stuff up and try to see what questions I could answer. Yeah, so the next sales tax return due for Texas is on Monday, on the 22nd, and I'm pretty sure that everybody that has to file is last minute rushing because my Watch time hours have been jumping, my views and all of that on my last— say, on my sales tax, how to file the sales tax return video. That's been popping, and it jumps up every time it's almost time to file the sales tax return, whether it's because sales tax can actually be due either monthly, quarterly, or annually, and most people are set to like quarterly And if it's set to quarterly, then it's like for the months of January through March as business, you would file April 20th. But like I said, for this year, since April 20th is on the weekend, today being the 20th, it falls on the following business day, which is the 22nd. So it is due on Monday on the 22nd this time. And then the next quarterly filing would be, uh, for April May, June's income sales, and then you would file in July on the 20th. Now I don't have the calendar in front of me, so I can't tell you whether or not it's actually going to be on the 20th. But if the 20th ends up being— July 20th ends up being on the weekend, uh, or it's a holiday, it'll fall on the following business day, and so on and so forth. January 20th is actually the, the, the date that everybody, every, every sales tax filer, um, has a return due. So that's like everybody's due date, uh, that where everything kind of aligns on that same date where everybody has to actually file. Okay, sorry, so I want to make sure that wasn't my daughter because she is about to perform at a wedding reception. And I just wanted to see if she needed me or anything. But hi, uh, whoever is with me, if you have any questions, I'm here to answer your questions, um, in case you have any about sales tax or, or any other, um, taxes that you have to file. You can always ask me questions. So as far as sales tax, a lot of the questions that people ask are like, do the sales they make on platforms like Amazon or Etsy or eBay, do they— do those sales tax sales have to be reported? Even though those companies collect the sales tax, they charge and collect the sales tax on your behalf, and they turn that money into the comptroller themselves. The answer is yes. There is the first box when you file your sales tax return. The first box says that you need to add all of your sales, your total sales, and that's what needs to go in the total sales box. You include those sales as well. In the second box though, that's where you subtract out anything that was not— that you weren't responsible for charging taxes to. So Say if 60% of your sales was on Amazon and Etsy and even on your website, but to people, customers like in other states, you wouldn't have to file— you wouldn't have to include sales tax on that because you're not charging sales tax to anybody that's not within Texas. Any of your Texas sales are the only ones that add up in that, that end up in that second box where there's taxable purchase where there's taxable sales. And so that's what you would report there. So Texas wants to know all of your sales in the first box, but in the second box they only want to know the sales that you need to— that you should have taxed the, um, the customer and that you should have collected that money. And this is the time where you'd be actually turning in that money. So remember, sales tax is not a tax that, that business owners are being charged by the government, by Texas. It is the customer, the person who is purchasing the product, specifically the Texas customers that are purchasing your product or services. Those are the people that are being taxed that fee. Your job as a small business owner, in order for you to be compliant and to be— have permission to do business in Texas, you have to charge the Texas customer's sales tax. You have to collect it, you have to turn it in when it's time for you to file your tax return, and then you have to turn in the funds as well that you collected on behalf of the Texas government. So that's what sales tax is about. It is not a tax that, uh, that is being charged to the owner, this— the business owner. It's being taxed— the tax is being charged to the actual customer. So that's how sales tax works. That's the only one you can really think of as a no, they're not charging me, they're charging the customer. And your job, just to be able to have permission to do business in Texas, is to charge the customer, collect it, file it, turn it in. That's how that works. Now franchise tax is different, and the new tax law right now is that the The previous laws for Texas franchise taxes was that you were having to file a no tax due report. Now the previous rule said that if you make less than $1.4— I'm sorry, $1.2 million roughly, uh, if you make less than $1.2 million, that you still needed to file a No, no, say, I mean, sorry, no tax due report. And when you file that report, it was an annual requirement. It was due, it's due May 15th. And in addition to that report, you also have to file your public information report. And that, the public information report is where you report who is running the company. So you report the owner and then whatever title that you given the owner, and if they're a director, if they're a manager, if they're the CEO, the president, you know, whatever the title is that you gave them, you'd report that for your Public Information Report. You'd also report anybody else that has a, a role that puts them in control of the company. And that is what goes in the Public Information Report. And that has to be— that was a requirement as well before for every year. Now, starting from 2024 going forward, because I had to relabel my other videos and let everybody know that the video that I shot, both of the tax return— I mean, the franchise tax reports, franchise tax filing videos that I recorded before, those were applicable to any tax return that was due in 2023 or before. Now, starting this year in 2024, now you don't have to file a no tax due— yeah, a no tax due Report. You do still have to file the Public Information Report, and the Public Information Report, again, that all that is, is it's your, your name, your information, what your, uh, your address is, what your title is, and if you have anybody else that's also like a director or a CEO or a, um, a manager or whatever title that they have, that is what you would report in the Public Information Report, and that must be filed. It's coming up due next month. May 15th, I do plan to, um, I'm planning to post like a full video where I explain what the difference is of the, from the old rules to the new rules. That way everybody can kind of connect the dots and understand, okay, what's different now, uh, and what was it before as far as the Texas franchise tax reporting rules. And then I'm also going to do another video where I do the actual step-by-step like I did last time. And show you on the screen what it looks like when you're going to file your public information report. It should be super simple because all they're doing is asking you for your name, your title, your address, and then if anybody else is running the company as well with you, that's what they'll be reporting. And then they'll— that's what will— what you'll submit. And once you do that, again, by May 15th, once you do that, you'll be fulfilled for your requirement. Now there's people that may have misunderstood the new rules and they're thinking, oh, I don't have to file anything. No, you definitely still have to file your, um, your— oh, sorry, it's getting kind of warm in here. Let me turn this off. Okay, but yeah, you, you still have to file once a year. It's still the report, the public information report is still due May 15th. But, um, and then the rule is that if you fail to file that— now I called the Comptroller's office and they said that they are not charging that $50 penalty for late filing, but I'm not gonna— I, I kind of am suspicious about that concept about whether or not they're going to still charge the $50 or not. Um, they say that because the public information report is not the same as like a tax filing that they wouldn't charge the $50. So we'll see. I'm sure people will, will comment on the video that I post coming up in the next week or two. They'll comment and let me know whether or not— well, after the deadline's passed, if anybody ends up being late for whatever reason, if they come to my video and use that to file and they, or they, and they're filing late, they'll let me know whether or not they actually got charged a penalty. But From what the Comptroller's representative said, they're not going to charge the penalty anymore. But then you might be wondering, okay, so what's the repercussion for not filing your public information report for the franchise tax? The repercussion is that you're going to end up forfeiting your company that's registered with the state of Texas. So if you forfeit your company, then you're going to have to go through the whole process of getting it reinstated. And technically, if you, if you forfeit your company, you won't be able to do business legally in Texas, meaning you're not supposed to continue to do business if you're, if you forfeit your right to do business in Texas. And in order to stay in compliance starting 2024, you still at least have to file your Public Information Report, and that is due on May 15th. So do not miss that deadline. It's a super easy, simple report to file. I'll have a video coming out at least in another week or two. I'll have that video coming out with the step-by-step exactly what to do. Um, likely it's probably going to be similar to what I've already put on YouTube. There's 2 videos already up that shows how to fill out the Public Information Report. Likely it's going to be that same experience, but I haven't gone through it yet to, to show exactly what it is from step 1 to the very last step of that process. So We'll see, um, once that video goes out, we'll see whether or not there's any differences. But at least it'll be something easy to follow, and you know, it's a simple requirement to be able to file that and get that, uh, submitted. That way you're not messing up your registration. Because here's the thing, it's, it's a pain in the butt once, once you've— this— once you failed to file on time and you're— they send you a letter saying that you're forfeiting your right to do business in Texas. Now you've got to go back to the Comptroller, you've got to file whatever filing hasn't been filed, and you also have to do a reinstatement or get a clearance letter from the Comptroller. Then you have to take that, that letter and you have to send it to the State of Texas, the Secretary of State of Texas. And if you have an SOS Direct account with them, you can do that all online and then submit that request. And I believe that they have a fee Um, I think it's $15. Don't quote me on that, I would have to look that up. But the Secretary of State is going to, is going to charge you if you have to get your, your LLC or your, uh, well, your company reinstated with the Secretary of State. So make sure that you just file on time. It's too easy to not file. Um, and that also leads me to the other filing that's due this year, um, for the FinCEN BOI report. Have any of y'all heard of that report that you have to start filing. It's just as mandatory as this public information report that Texas requires you to file, but that report is due for all of the companies. It's, it's— that one's not state level, that's federal. So FinCEN is wanting to crack down, crack down on anybody that's like money laundering and stuff like that. So in, in their mind, in order to deter people from doing that, from running a bunch of businesses and doing money laundering, um, with those businesses. They want everybody to basically report, report themselves, and report who owns what and who is benefiting off of those companies. So that's what the BOI report is. It's the Beneficial Ownership Information report. That's what you have to file Um, and that one is not an annual filing though, okay? So that one you only have to file it once. Um, in fact, I'm gonna go ahead and shut down this live right now, and I'm gonna start another one to kind of explain how the BOI works. I will also be doing a full YouTube video where I do the show and tell and show you exactly what the screens look like, how to file it, uh, what the rules are that you've got to kind of watch out for, if there are any, that that, you know, that might be something that you would have a question about. So, um, like I said, I'm going to shut down this video and then I'm going to start a new one, uh, right after I shut this one down. So hang— uh, join me again in just a second.