Your Guide for Starting a Home Tax Preparation Business
If you have any interest in a career as a tax preparation professional, it’s important to know that you aren’t stuck with the choice between working for a large accounting company or at a local branch of a nationwide tax preparation service. It’s possible to have a lucrative and fulfilling career as a work from home tax preparer if you have the right credentials and experience. Working from home offers tremendous freedom and flexibility. If you want to start a tax preparation practice out of your home, you should have some idea of what to expect.
Why Start a Tax Preparation Practice From Home?
Tax preparation is a field that offers job security. With compound annual industry growth and a consistent need for tax professionals nationwide, a certified tax preparer will never be out of work for long. While a tax preparation professional can likely find a job at one of the thousands of tax preparation services operating in the United States, many modern tax preparers are opting for opening their own home-based practices instead. In fact, out of the more than 80 million tax returns prepared each year, only about 23% go through tax preparation company franchises. The vast majority of Americans who file tax returns prefer to work with smaller tax preparation companies, most of which have less than ten employees.
To start a tax preparation business from your home, finding clients is your first priority. Even outside of tax return season, many home-based tax preparation professionals offer their clients a wide range of tax-related services, from managing their business taxes to navigating various tax-related issues through the Internal Revenue Service or state revenue departments. However, the availability of clients is just one of the reasons many modern tax professionals are choosing to work from home. This type of working arrangement offers several distinct benefits:
- A work from home tax preparation professional can set his or her own schedule. Work as hard as you want, as often as you want, with as many clients as you want once you put in the necessary effort to attract a client base.
- Working from home makes it much easier to manage work-life balance and handle family life. A tax professional working from home can provide in-home childcare and not have to worry about the expenses of daycare.
- A work from home tax preparer has minimal overhead. To start a tax preparation business out of your home, you need to obtain the necessary software, office supplies, and technology to do your work, but you won’t need to worry about additional property expenses that would come with owning office space or payroll for employees.
- You can grow in the future. If you want something more than just a side gig for extra income and dream of expanding your practice beyond a one-person operation, your experience working from home can empower you for your professional future.
- Working from home remotely allows you to provide tax preparation services to clients outside your local area, offering even more opportunities to expand your practice in the future.
- All you need when it comes to office space is room in your home to do your work efficiently and a clean, comfortable area to meet with clients in person.
Of all the incredible benefits of working from home, perhaps the best is a complete freedom and day-to-day flexibility that comes when you start a tax preparation practice in your home.
Get Your Home Tax Preparation Business Started the Right Way
Running your own tax preparation practice does come to the responsibility of finding your own clients, managing your own expenses, and truly being your own boss. You need to ensure you have adequate resources for handling your clients’ needs. This includes office equipment, communication technology, and the necessary software for handling each client’s individual tax-related issues.
You also need to prepare your home to accommodate your business. This is easier for some than others, but ultimately you just need a quiet and comfortable workspace and a place to meet with clients if you plan to meet with them in person. You may also need to upgrade your tech; the right software, a newer computer, and a quality printer are crucial.
If you work with clients from your local area, you’re going to need the appropriate forms for filing local, state, and federal tax returns for them. You will also need to handle your own business expenses and tax obligations. To grow your tax preparation practice beyond a one-person operation, you can delegate these responsibilities to other employees. To become more financially stable, you may want to handle these tasks yourself.
Before you can start working from home as a tax preparer, you need to complete the necessary coursework to obtain your tax preparation certification. Depending on where you live and where you plan to practice, you’re going to need to navigate federal as well as state-level requirements. Having some professional guidance in this regard can be a tremendous asset and help you streamline the process of getting your work-from-home tax preparation business up and running. You may also need assistance completing your certification, and Universal Accounting can help.
Complete Required Coursework and Certification With Expert Assistance
When you first start working from home as a professional tax preparer, your first clients might be friends, family members, and neighbors, but you could quickly expand to helping other local business owners with their tax-related issues. Having the right certification is a necessity for opening such a business, but going a step further and learning how to truly take charge of your business can make working from home more efficient and rewarding.
Universal Accounting offers a wide range of courses designed to empower you as a business owner. Unlike other tax preparation courses, you can complete the Universal Accounting tax preparation course in a matter of weeks instead of months and hit the ground running with the tools you need to guide your tax preparation business into the future.
Whether you want to supplement your income by providing tax preparation services out of your home or grow into a larger business in the future, Universal Accounting offers the courses and tools you will need for success. Call us today at (877) 833-7909 for more information about our tax professional courses and how we can help you start working from home as a professional tax preparer.
