How to Know When You Need a Tax Director
Does your business plan include a tax strategy? Probably not. Should it? Maybe.
Whether you’ve done it before or are starting a business for the first time, entrepreneurship is a challenge:
- You’re building a new process, product or service.
- You’re writing business plans, developing power point presentations and spreadsheets.
- You’re meeting with lawyers to protect your IP, bookkeepers to track your spending and developers to do what you tell them.
- Your significant other wants to know why you can’t be there.
You’re exhausted. Do you need a tax strategy? Yes.
Do you need it now? Depends.
In case you’re too busy to recognize it, here’s where you should “start with the answer”. What’s your exit strategy? What’s in it for you? Over 200 years ago, Benjamin Franklin said: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The ounce to the pound reference is perfect here. Don’t get sold a pound of cure today.
The best tax provider is someone who understands your priorities, both long-term and tomorrow. Whether your plan is to go public, to sell to the highest bidder or to run your business as a cash cow for years to come, you should back into your structure.
Whichever outcome you’re targeting, you still need to keep taxes for distracting you from more important matters. Don’t make the mistake of forgetting about sales and use taxes, property taxes, payroll taxes, and business and occupation taxes.
You need a Tax Director down the Hall.