Businesses are advised to begin preparing end-of-year steps for tax preparation and become familiar with the latest rules taking effect.
SCORE is a national organization of retired business executives supporting small business owners with advice and mentorship. One of its offices is in Aiken.
ABD joined a recent webinar sponsored by the organization. It was led by Barbara Weltman, an attorney and author. She provided information on several topics:
- What’s new for your 2026 return and how to prepare for 2027
- Year-end actions that can lower your tax bill
- Deductions for vehicles, equipment, employee benefits, and more
- Tax credit changes for 2026
- Prepping for W-2 and 1099 reporting
“It’s not to make you a tax professional by any means, but it’s to get you thinking about what you can do for your business and perhaps the questions to ask for your tax advisor,” said Weltman. “I think it’s important in terms of planning to think about what you can do to save on 2026 taxes. There’s still time this year, and how to position yourself for 2027 by knowing what some of the changes are going to be.”
Nearly halfway through November means roughly only six weeks remain to get documents updated, double-checked, and finalized.
Weltman cautioned that the information she provided is not tax advice or legal advice. For that, she recommended meeting with their business advisor.
“The purpose is to alert you to important tax rules and opportunities,” she began. “It’s not to make you a tax professional by any means, but it’s to get you thinking about what you can do for your business and perhaps the questions to ask for your tax advisor.”
Attorney Rachel Ray with the Enoch Tarver law firm agreed with Weltman that the best first step for businesses is to speak with their accountant or financial advisor.
However, Ray specializes in business law, including contracts, business formations and trademarks. She said businesses will have very different year-end tax preparation needs, depending on whether they are working with online systems, such as credit lines, credit and debit cards, and checking, or if they are primarily a cash business.
“Keeping track should be easier nowadays because the credit card companies are giving you monthly and year-end tallies,” she said. “The card business is by its very nature going to be electronically based because everything’s going to be running through that card system,” she said.
Ray added that record-keeping is a heavier lift for smaller businesses and individuals who are primarily cash-based. Those tend to be gig workers, artisans, and independent contractors.
“The cash businesses have to keep much better track of their records because they’re not getting that (banking) information. They have to keep that information themselves,” she explained. “If those cash businesses aren’t set up to scan or put that information into an Excel spreadsheet when they get it, just kind of put it into a box somewhere. It’s going to be a hard, hard thing to capture later.”
During the webinar, Weltman also advised that, in addition to developing strategies, meeting with a tax advisor can also educate business owners about bills pending before Congress that could impact 2026 returns.
“There’s something pending for crypto. There’s something pending to reinstate a tax credit that was called the Work Opportunity Credit for hiring individuals from certain targeted groups that expired at the end of 2025 that could be reinstated, so you want to watch for that,” she said.
Weltman also cautioned anyone using artificial intelligence to conduct tax research to double-check the accuracy of all the information being provided. She has found in her own research that AI may provide information based on a previous year’s tax code.
Learn more about how SCORE can help locally; visit https://www.score.org/sc/greater-aiken.
