January 2012

Dear Family Child Care Provider,

If you are a current client, thank you for your business and trust in me. If you are a prospective client or other visitor to my website, welcome. I hope that you find some useful information.

If you are a California family child care provider looking for help preparing your 2011 income tax return, you will need to get organized early (see below). Please read my Frequently Asked Questions to learn about my services and my approach to working with clients.

After reading my FAQ, if you feel comfortable with my approach and estimated fee range, follow these steps to get onto my client roster for 2011 tax preparation.

New clients will need to come in for an
office appointment or deliver your tax records into my hands no later than
Saturday, March 3, 2012.

Returning clients have a similar deadline of Wednesday, March 21, 2012.

If you have further questions about family child care record keeping or tax issues, please contact me by email or by phone at 800-616-1268 (California residents) or 510-745-7275 (all others).

Email is the quickest way to get my attention. This is especially true during the busy season, when it can be very hard to find the time to return phone calls.

Be sure to treat your child care assistants as proper employees. Let our Family Child Care Payroll Service handle the paperwork for you.

Yours truly,

P.S. If you are an out-of-state child care provider, I'm sorry to say that I am only working with California residents. I can't make any actual referrals, but I am acquainted with Kelly Nokleby, an Enrolled Agent in Minnesota who works with child care providers from all over the United States. You may wish to check out her Books by Kelly website.

New Child Care Providers:

You could learn a lot from
The Professional Provider,
a book put together just for you by Sharon Coleman, a dedicated and professional child care provider here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Alison Helps Clients With:

• Record-Keeping
• Income Tax Preparation
• Employee Issues / Hiring Helpers
• Payroll Tax: Quarterly Returns, W-2s, Etc.
• Estimated Tax Payments (Form 1040-ES)
• IRS Notices and Audits
• Prior Year Tax Returns
• Catching Up on Prior Depreciation with Form 3115
• Direct and Shared Expenses
• Daycare Grocery Costs
• Standard Meal Allowance Rates
• Time / Space Percentage
• 100% Day Care Rooms (exclusive use)
• Home Inventories and Depreciation
• Business Use of Home (Form 8829)
• Auto Expense
• Start-up Costs

Remember:

• Use a Form W-10 to provide your tax id number to parents.
• Don't give out your social security number - get a tax id number for your business.
• Save all grocery receipts (even for personal food) unless you use the standard meal allowance rates.
• Track all meals served to day care kids, even those not reimbursed by a food program.
• Track hours you (and your spouse) work when kids are not present.
• Always depreciate your home if you own it; depreciation will benefit you and it is not optional.
• Avoid a big tax bill and penalties on April 15 by making estimated tax payments.
• Do an inventory of your home furnishings when you start business (or even within a few years of starting).