Yesterday was tax day. And just like every year, I filed my own taxes.
I want to talk about that — because I know it’s not the conventional advice. Every article you read about small business finances eventually gets to the same line: hire a professional. And I’m not here to tell you that’s wrong. There are absolutely situations where hiring a tax professional is the right call.
But I also think there’s a version of this conversation that nobody is having honestly. The version where someone is just starting their business, not making a lot of money yet, and genuinely cannot afford to pay a tax preparer hundreds of dollars on top of everything else. This is the version where you have a simple Schedule C business and TurboTax will walk you through every single step. The version where doing it yourself isn’t a compromise — it’s actually the smarter move.
So let me tell you what I do, why I do it, and how to know if it might make sense for you too.
Disclaimer: I’m not a CPA or tax professional and this isn’t tax advice. This is my personal experience and perspective as a solopreneur. Your situation is unique and if you have questions about your specific tax picture, consult a qualified tax professional.
My Setup – and Why It Works
I’m a solopreneur. My business operates as a single-member LLC and I file on Schedule C. I track all of my income and expenses in QuickBooks throughout the year. Every transaction is categorized, every deduction is documented, and by the time I sit down to do my taxes I have clean, organized financial records that give me a complete picture of my business.
Then I open TurboTax and go through it step by step.
TurboTax guides you through every single question. It prompts you for home office deductions, mileage, equipment, software subscriptions, professional development, advertising — all of it. Plus it explains what qualifies and what doesn’t. It finds deductions I might not have thought to include. And because I’ve been tracking everything in QuickBooks all year, I have the numbers ready to go.
It works. And it costs a fraction of what I’d pay a tax preparer.
The Honest Truth About Tax Preparers
Here’s the thing nobody tells you about hiring a tax preparer: during tax season, they have hundreds of returns to get through. They are working fast. So they are going to take what you give them and run with it.
They are not going to sit down and dig through your year to find every possible deduction. They are not going to ask you, “Hey, did you buy any equipment with personal funds that we should add to your business expenses?” They are not going to notice that you’ve been paying for a software subscription out of your personal account that should have been a business deduction.
Only you know those things.
I remember the moment I realized this in my own finances — that mouse and keyboard I bought with personal funds and forgot to log in QuickBooks. The course I bought for professional development that I paid for personally in October and didn’t think about until I was sitting down with my taxes. The small things that add up to real money in deductions that a rushed tax preparer working from your QuickBooks export simply would not have caught.
When you do your own taxes you catch those things. Because you’re the only one who actually knows what happened in your business that year.
The Real Reason to Start by Doing It Yourself
There’s a deeper reason I recommend this for solopreneurs who are just starting out — and it has nothing to do with saving money on tax prep fees.
Doing your own taxes teaches you things you can’t learn any other way.
When you go line by line through your own return, you learn what the IRS considers a legitimate business deduction. You learn what categories matter and which ones trigger closer scrutiny. You’ll learn what questions to ask. And you start thinking differently about your spending throughout the year — not just at tax time — because now you understand what counts and what doesn’t.
You start noticing in October that you’re going to need a receipt for that conference you attended. Then you start thinking in January about whether that home office deduction applies to you. You’l even start asking yourself, “Is this a business expense? Should I be paying for this through my business account?”
That knowledge compounds. Every year you get a little sharper. Every year you catch a little more. And every year you become a better-informed client for when you do eventually bring in a professional.
Because here’s the truth: the best time to hire a tax professional is when you actually understand your own finances well enough to have a real conversation with them.
If you hand your books to a tax preparer before you understand your own numbers, you’re essentially hoping they’ll catch everything. They won’t. Not always. Not when they’re on their 200th return of the season.
But if you’ve been doing your own taxes for a couple of years, you know your business. You know your deductions. You know what looks unusual. And when you eventually bring in a professional — because your business has grown, or your situation has gotten more complex — you’re going to get so much more out of that relationship.
When It Might Make Sense to File Yourself
This approach works really well if:
You’re a solopreneur filing on Schedule C. One business, one owner, income from services or digital products, standard business expenses. This is exactly what TurboTax is built for. It’s genuinely straightforward.
You’re just starting out and not making a lot of money yet. This is the one that frustrates me most about the “always hire a professional” advice. If you’re a new solopreneur making $30,000 in your first year and your net profit after expenses is modest, paying $400–600 for a tax preparer can feel like a significant hit. Do it yourself, learn the process, and invest that money back into your business instead.
You’re a real estate investor with a relatively simple setup. If you own one or two properties filing on Schedule E and your situation isn’t overly complex, doing your own taxes while you’re in the early stages lets you learn what rental property deductions look like — depreciation, repairs, mortgage interest, property management fees — before you’re paying someone else to find them for you.
You have clean, organized books. This is the prerequisite for all of the above. If your QuickBooks is current and accurate, doing your own taxes is genuinely manageable. If your books are a mess, that’s the problem to solve first — and that’s a separate conversation.
When You Should Absolutely Bring in a Professional
This is important — and I mean it.
If you have an S-Corp or C-Corp, hire a CPA. The complexity is real and the cost of getting it wrong is significant.
If you have multiple business entities, hire a CPA.
If you have significant investment income, a large real estate portfolio, or you’re dealing with depreciation recapture, cost segregation studies, or 1031 exchanges — you need a tax professional who specializes in real estate. Not a general tax preparer. A real estate-specific tax strategist who does this all day, every day, and knows the nuances cold.
If your business is growing rapidly and you’re starting to think about tax strategy — not just tax filing — that’s the moment to find a tax strategist, not just a tax preparer. There’s a real difference. A tax preparer files what happened. A tax strategist helps you plan what to do so you pay less legally. When your business reaches the point where that planning is worth paying for, invest in it.
The goal isn’t to never hire a professional. The goal is to know your own finances well enough that when you do, you get the most out of that relationship — and you’re not paying someone to do something you could have done yourself.
The Tools I Use
My setup is simple:
QuickBooks for tracking all business income and expenses throughout the year. Every transaction categorized, every receipt accounted for, books reconciled monthly. This is the non-negotiable foundation. If your books aren’t clean, nothing else works.
TurboTax for filing. It’s built specifically for self-employed people and small business owners. It guides you through every section, asks the right questions, and makes sure you’re not leaving deductions on the table. I’ve found it thorough, straightforward, and worth every penny compared to what I’d pay a tax preparer for a simple Schedule C return.
That’s it. Two tools, a little discipline throughout the year, and I walk into tax day feeling prepared rather than panicked.
The Bigger Picture
I think one of the most empowering things you can do as a small business owner is understand your own finances — truly understand them, not just hand them to someone else and hope for the best.
Filing your own taxes is part of that. It forces you to look at your numbers. Plus it teaches you what matters. It makes you a sharper, more informed business owner. And it builds the foundation for making really smart decisions about when and how to bring in professional help as your business grows.
You don’t have to do this forever. But starting here? I think it’s one of the best financial decisions a new solopreneur can make.
Have questions about setting up your QuickBooks so tax time is actually manageable? That’s exactly what the QuickBooks Set Up for Solopreneurs course covers — clean books, the right categories, and a system that makes sense year-round.
👉 Learn more about QuickBooks Set Up for Solopreneurs