Business Planning

[RichM]

This months issue of Overdrive Magazine has an article titled" Creating your Financial Map". It describes how to build an effective business plan for a potential owner operator. The article comes from the 2007 edition of Partners in Business manual.They will be giving a seminar at the MATTS show on March 23rd from 2-4.

More info and a copy of the manual can be obtained by calling 1-800-633-5954 x 1135 or www.partners-in-business.com

 

[ATeam]

Thank you, RichM for sharing this information. Partners in Business is one of the best online resources there is for people seeking information about truck business planning. The price is right too. Online, it is free!

The publication is jointly published by Overdrive magazine and American Truck Business Services. ATBS specializes in providing bookeeping and tax services to owner operators. It is the largest firm of its kind in the nation.

FedEx Custom Critical contractors receive a discount from ATBS and can have their monthly fees to ATBS deducted directly from their settlements. I do not know if ATBS has similiar arrangements set up yet with other expediting carriers.

If they do not, and if you are with a carrier other than FedEx, the Partners in Business publication and ATBS are still worth looking into. If you are an ATBS client, you won't have to come to EO to ask questions like, "Should I incorporate?" or "Is the cost of my XM radio deductible." ATBS serves thousands of owner-operators. As an ATBS client, you could call your assigned consultant who will provide not only the answers but the right ones for your situation.

Each year at the Louisville truck show, ATBS puts on a seminar about the trucking industry and owner-operator business planning. If you are at the show, this is an event to include.

ATBS services are further expalined on their web site at:

http://attrucktax.com/

 

[davekc]

This program has been available and promoted at Panther for quite some time. They have numerous carriers involved in their program.
I should add, that I have not used them as they really aren't suited to our other projects that we are involved in.











Davekc
owner
22 years
PantherII
EO moderator

 

[dpea9]

Do you know how much their book keeping and tax services are. As I am not real fond of paperwork the bookeeping and tax service looks like something I would be interested in.:+ :+

 

[TeamCaffee]

A word of caution on ATBS from our experiences. We used them our first year with our new truck. The first problem that we found out at the end of the year was our estimated taxes where figured wrong and we paid in more then 6000.00 then we needed to. We immediately started looking for a new accountant who after looking at our 2005 taxes decided to refigure them. They found the depreciation of the truck was figured wrong and also there was a problem with our PerDiem resulting in another large refund. The government has had several thousand dollars of our money and they are not paying any interest to us! Your first year of owning a truck you do not need to pay any extra then you have to. We have found an accountant that will work with us and we only have to send them a copy of our QuickBooks files not all of our receipts. This company is also a truck based company and we feel a lot more comfortable with them.

 

[ATeam]

It is always best to have an accountant that you feel comfortable with. It is also the case that most any accountant can do better than another by looking at a prior tax return and re-doing it in a way that treats expenses and deductions differently, but still legal.

Depreciatiion calculations are a case in point. A variety of totally legal depreciation schedules exist for you to choose from. The accelerated deprecaiation schedules reduce your tax liability in the early years of the truck's life (and thus reduce the amount to be paid in estimated taxes) but you may have increased tax liability in later years, depending on what you do with and how you dispose of the truck.

Straight-line depreciation will not reduce your tax liability as much in the early years but spread the depreciation deduction out longer, which may be advantagous in certain situations.

There is no way to say which schedule is best until your truck plans, financial goals, and current and future tax plans are clearly known and stated to your accountant.

As first-year truck owners, Diane and I are right now reviewing our depreciation schedule options. As we do so, it is nice to be receiving advice from a truck tax company in which we have placed our trust and with which we feel comfortable.

Disclaimer: I am not a tax professional. Get your tax advice not from me but from someone qualified to give it. I'm just a truck driver sharing my personal views on the topic.

 

[TeamCaffee]

situation the truck was depreciated incorrectly and if we where to have had a audit we would have lost all the way around. There is not a good reason to not figure perdiem in correctly when your primary business is truck accounting. Another driver recommended this company and we have been very happy with the level of support we have received. We also still have all our receipts in our possession.

 

[nightcreacher]

I use an accountant here where I live,The firm where he works gets a pretty big chunk of my money each year,but he saves me thousands.
I've been audited twice,he goes to the audit with me at no charge,and I've not had any problem as of yet,knock on wood.When you find an accountant,just make sure they are familiar with all the trucking rules,H&R Block wont be what your lQQking for.

 

[TeamCaffee]

We are using John Turner out of Houston TX. You may have heard him on the Dave Nemo show as he is a regular. We have really appreciated the questions he asks about out business. He will work with you on any level you are comfortable with. The company has all ready saved us enough to pay their fees for several years. The web site is http://www.jturnercpa.com/sb/index.jsp Steve is right though you need a good truck accountant.

 

[ATeam]

TeamCafe,

I was not talking about you personally. Please do not take my post personally.

My point, made badly it seems, is simply that if accountant A looks at a tax return prepared by accountant B, there will almost certainly be tax-strategy alternatives that accountant A can present that will make accountant B look bad. Before joining accountant A in condemning accountant B and then becoming accountant B' client, wise drivers will ask accountant B to review and answer accountant A's observations and competitive claims.

If an outright mistake is discovered on the return B prepared, B should certainly be notified so the mistake can be corrected on B's dime, not your own.