Editorial Review
A how-to book of practical know-how for the some 25 million Americans who are self-employed -- about business deductions, easy recordkeeping, estimated taxes, pension plans -- everything an independent professional needs to know about the tax consequences of his or her business.
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Customer Reviews
Perfect for the self-employed artist! 
2008-09-10
I'm a full time artist and bought this book to make sense of my tax mess. It was entertaining to read, and laid out a clear and easy plan for me to follow. This is EXACTLY what every artist needs to read.
Full of useful information! 2007-12-29
This book is head and shoulders above most other books on the market of its kind. Most books gloss over and repeat what is freely available in the tax booklets; this book explains and expands on that information. Plus, it gives you tips on how to plan ahead so as to take legal advantage of the tax opportunities offered within the tax code. It is well organized and a certain reliable resource for self employed individuals.
Author is windy. Book is OK. There are better out there 
2007-12-27
This book was OK. I agree with the alliteration criticism of the other reader. Too much like fantasy. Too many references and suggestions that you MUST get a professional preparer or take your records to a professional preparer/accountant. Why bother reading this book if I wanted to pay someone else to do my taxes? The author's "Most Simple System" is a re-hash of Fluery's "No Entry Accounting" system in his book from years ago called "Small Business Survival Guide" only Fluery takes it a step further and recommends you doing your own taxes. Ms. Walker takes you to the brink of this but falls short. You've already done 95% of the work with her "system" so why not finish it? I recommend you start with this book then read "Small Business Survival Guide" and you'll be in good shape and not have to pay an accountant to do your taxes. Fluery's book is out of date but the Schedule C hasn't changed all that much since that book was published. Get a new version of Sch. C, combine the info from both books and you are all set.
Finally, this book repeats itself over and over. It could be half as long.
Simply The Best 2007-12-19
By far the best self-employed book on taxes that I have read to this day! A must read for anyone who has been in business and would like to understand better what the CPA is saying, and a definite must for anyone thinking about being self-employed.
Small Business Answers 
2007-09-04
"Self-Employed Tax Solutions" is an excellent self help start to treating your cottage industry as a business and working your way through the intricacies of filing federal taxes as a small business. Ms. Walker's explanations are clear and well illustrated.
We had no trouble understanding each point and applying the rules to our own small business situation. The only problem we found was her citing a court ruling, putting it in quotes, and not providing a bibliographic source.
Both the glossary and the index are adequate for the novice readers. The style was breezy and light, which made the reading easy.
A good place to start for an entry level "indie" who needs basic tax information. She has several "wish I'd thought of that" ideas for keeping records and saving time.
Nash Black, author of "Taxes, Stumbling Blocks and Pitfalls for Authors."
Self-employed Tax Solutions 2007-06-13
A how-to book of practical know-how for the some 25 million Americans who are self-employed -- about business deductions, easy recordkeeping, estimated taxes, pension plans -- everything an independent professional needs to know about the tax consequences of his or her business.
Learn about taxes. Without pain. 2007-03-30
I highly recommend this book! I am about to graduate design school and am starting up a sole proprietorship. I realized I know absolutely nothing about what I'm getting into tax-wise, so I picket this up on Amazon. An excellent buy! This book is incredibly easy to read and understandable, despite the fact that you would expect the subject matter to be painfully dry. It's not. The world of taxes isn't half as painful and boring as I expected it to be, thanks to this book.
Excellent Book 2006-12-30
This is a very well written book that provides a lot of insights to self-employed people. Provides very good ideas on deductions and methods to legally cut the self-employed person's overall tax burden.
A Few Issues but Holding a Few Gems Too 2006-12-24
I pretty much never comment about the font a book is done in, but let me start out my review by saying that this book had the oddest font choice I've seen. The letters were very thin, squarish, and actually hard to read against the white. It made me realize just how important something like font can be in a book.
So, on to the content. This book is written by a self-employed person, for self-employed people, to help them manage their records for taxes. She doesn't want you to DO your taxes - she wants you to hire someone, like her, to do them for you :). She just wants you to be informed about what is going on, and to perhaps help prod your tax person along if they're not very good.
In case you were thinking this book was a mere "nice to have", she says in her introduction that "Such complications [of not handling this properly] could prove fatal to your enterprise." I love it how books say "you must buy me or you will DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH!!!" A page later, she promises "If you use this method, you will never miss a tax deduction" which I sort of doubt :) So this book has already hit a few of my buttons in book reading - threatening certain doom if I don't get the book, promising the moon, and being hard to read :)
Much of the first part of the book focusses on whether you should go into business for yourself, what it means to be self employed, and whether you should be a DBA, Sole Proprietor, LLC, etc. Hopefully anybody looking for tax solutions has already gone through those stages and isn't looking for all their information on these important decisions in a few pages of a tax book.
But on to the meat. When you get into the realm of *taxes*, the book really does well. It explains the difference between personal gifts (tax deductible up to $25 per person per year), entertainment expenses, free giveaway items (pens etc), charity donations, and more, in very clear language.
The book goes into travel deductions, home office deductions, leasing and buying equipment. It gives a ton of examples. Some people might find them annoying - I admit that many of them are quite silly. Still, it's easy enough to skip over them if you're not into cutesy examples, but if they help you absorb a concept, they are there for you to read.
Like with any business book, there are a lot of very common sense things in here - but a few very key tips. The interesting thing is of course that depending on who reads it, they might find different things to be fascinating vs well known. Something that one person says "of course" to, someone else might say "That'll save me thousands!" So it's good that all bases are covered in here.
Well recommended as a book to at least get out from your local library, or to get and share around your network of business-owning friends. It's not a book that I need to sit on my library shelf, but it was worthwhile to read and glean a few important tidbits from. I'll now pass it along to other business owners to let them pick out their own gems.
Great Reading when starting your own business 2006-07-01
This book is great reading when starting your own business, whatever the type of business. You will still need a tax accountant (and that is also what the author recommends) but you will have a good understanding on what records to keep and what you can write off. This makes the everday management clearer and the conversations with the tax accountant a lot easier. The book is written in fun, plain English. Some people may find the style too trivial but I actually enjoyed it because the book was easy to read that way.
