Thanks to today's technology, business tax calculator tasks don't have to be as daunting as they were in days past. Programs that can be run easily from the convenience of your business PC can calculate quarterly taxes, year-end federal taxes, as well as potential tax refunds.

This article will discuss the pricing and costs of tax calculators in regard to three areas: online tax calculators, online software and tax accountant services. These three are your best options to obtain tax tools to help your business calculate, prepare and submit tax information.

1. Take advantage of free tax tools to get an estimate of what your business taxes will be.

2. Purchase tax software with tax refund calculators as part of the package.

3. Hire an accountant to perform quarterly and year-end federal tax calculator tasks for your business.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Estimate your business taxes using free online tax tools

Business tax calculators available online are often free. They are ideal for giving you a general idea or estimate of what your taxes will look like. They should not be relied upon to calculate exact taxes or other financial data.

I recommend: SurePayroll provides free payroll tax calculators. SuggestSoft's free Tax Returns Calculator 1.0 claims to be simple, yet thorough.

Purchase software to serve as your business tax calculator

While many sites offer free tax calculators to preview what your quarterly or year-end business taxes will be, the only way to be sure is to purchase software to run the figures accurately for you. These online programs also offer you the ability to file business taxes quickly and online.

I recommend: TurboTax, from Intuit, offers two different programs that cost approximately $100 specifically for small business tax preparation. Intuit also offers a series of programs that vary between $200 to $600 depending on the scope of your business tax needs.

Outsource quarterly tax calculator tasks as well as year-end accounting

You should expect to pay approximately $65 to $70 per hour for an accountant to complete your tax return. It will take anywhere from one to four hours depending on how well-organized the paperwork you provide is. If you decide your business could benefit from ongoing tax preparation planning consulting services, the rates will be higher at $150 to $300 per hour. Although the hourly rate may make you gasp, keep in mind that these consultants are trained to save you much more through proper planning.

I recommend: Bankrate's article entitled "Hire a good accountant or your numbers will crunch you," discusses the how's and why's around hiring an accountant to handle tax preparation and all things financial. Find a tax accountant for your business using GoodAccountant's online search form.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  A key to minimizing tax-related pain is to keep your records up to date and well organized. If your business financial records are a disaster, with papers strewn about everywhere, there are no tax tools in the world that will make tax return time easy.

Taxes are a special challenge for the small enterprise. You must meet the rules the tax code has for business filers, but you don't have a large (or any) finance department to plow through the numbers for you.

You also have to consider taxes you must collect, such as payroll taxes on your employees or sales taxes on your merchandise.

You do, however, have several handy and accessible resources to help you get a handle on your business tax responsibilities. Basically, there are three main sources of tax help:

1. The Internet
2. Online calculators
3. Business tax books

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Small business tax Web sites

Online tax resources come in two forms: free advice and tax guidance for a fee. Start with the freebies, as many of the tax programs available for purchase simply recreate documents already available as free downloads.

I recommend: For the official word on federal tax obligations, head to the IRS small business and self-employment section, where you'll find handy links to forms, documents and news for companies of any size. Plain-English tax help is also available at CCH's Business Owner's Toolkit tax section.

Find it Fast!

For fast tax answers to specific issues, the Find it Fast tool at the IRS site can help.

I recommend: Start at Find it Fast! Some of the main choices include: Business Types, Closing a business, Contractors, EINs, Employees, Expenses, Industries & Professions, Retirement Plans and Self-Employed.

Calculators you can count on

The Internet if chock full of tax calculators. Unfortunately, most of the free ones are designed for individual, not business, taxpayers.

I recommend: If you're operating a sole proprietorship, TurboTax offers free calculators to determine your self-employment taxes. So does H&R Block. If your business is bigger, to get computation assistance you'll have to pay $60 to $100 for TurboTax for Business software or around $80 for Block's TaxCut for Business. Payroll-Taxes.com offers several calculators to help you and your employees determine the tax costs of income and benefits.

Get W-2, 1099, 941 and other tax forms out fast

Online e-filing solutions can help any small business get 1099 and W2 tax forms out quickly and easily.

I recommend: FileTaxes.com – backed by over 50 years of experience in tax tool development – is used by thousands of small business owners nationwide. It's an easy solution to W-2 and 1099 form filing without the need for software.

Falling back on old-fashioned resources

Online resources are often lifesavers. But when it comes to taxes, sometimes you need a tome you can bookmark and come back to for repeated reference.

I recommend: Three long-time tax experts offer businesses advices on filing and reducing federal tax bills: "Small Business Taxes Made Easy" by California enrolled agent Eva Rosenberg; "Tax Savvy for Small Business: Year-Round Strategies to Save You Money" by Frederick W. Daily; and the annual J.K. Lasser small business tax-filing guide. All are available from online booksellers such as Amazon, Borders or Barnes & Noble.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Do your research. A basic understanding of your tax obligations and saving options will help you meet and make the most out of your business tax situation.
• •  Spend some time surfing tax Web sites.
• •  Learn what your state and local taxing jurisdictions require. Mistakes here can be as costly as those on the federal level.
• •  Don't try to cut corners when it comes to taxes. If you need the software upgrade, but it. It will be worth it in what you save in taxes or by not owing any penalties for filing mistakes.
• •  Similarly, if your company needs personal professional tax help, hire an accountant to get your business taxes in order.

Tax calculators education and training make the job of preparing tax returns easier and more accurate. These calculators perform complex computations for each line of the tax form. Use these calculators to get the correct result for your deductions, credits and taxes due. Make sure you use Internal Revenue Service approved calculators or the computation may not be the answer the IRS is looking for and you can wind up with a penalty.

Use tax calculators to learn the impact of taxes on your investments. The tax you pay can wither away the profit of your investment, so learn how to use tax calculators for smarter investment choices. Consider the following about tax calculators education and training:

1. Educate yourself on the many functions of business tax calculators.

2. Learn what tax calculators calculate and how to make the most of this information.

3. Choose tax tools and calculators that teach you how to invest wisely.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Use a small business tax calculator and a quarterly tax calculator for your business tax calculation

Many tax tools exist to help the small business owner make the most of his business. While there is no formal school for just tax calculators, you can educate yourself on the ones that are available by visiting the websites and following the instructions provided. Always check with the Internal Revenue Service, State Taxing Authority or local taxing authority if you have a question about a tax calculation made with one of these calculators.

I recommend: Kiplinger offers a tax calculator to figure withholding tax. Follow the easy-to-use instructions to learn how to use this tax calculator. Department of Revenue Washington State provides a sales tax calculator with on-screen instructions on how to use this tax tool.

Learn which kinds of tax refund calculators and other tax calculators are available

Tax calculators do not just calculate income taxes. There are calculators for investment tax burden, mortgage taxes, sales tax and other kinds of taxes. Use these calculators to find out how much tax you will pay and how to reduce your tax liability.

I recommend: US Office of Personal Management offers a tax calculator that computes your tax free portion of your federal retirement benefit. Esticost offers a tax calculator that calculates how much housing costs after taxes. Complete Tax offers free financial and tax calculators to educate you on various topics including tax on investments and mortgages.

Invest in free tax calculators for income tax purposes

Use free online tax calculators to calculate taxes on for every aspect of your income tax. Different areas of the 1040 require calculations pertaining to that section and these calculators make doing taxes easier.

I recommend: Bankrate.com offers tax calculators that figure your tax bracket, 1040, payroll deductions and more. Instructions for each calculator are right on the page for ease of use. Internal Revenue Service offers a free tax calculator to determine your withholding. The IRS provides easy-to-use instructions right on the page on how to use this calculator. Finance CCH offers a tax calculator to estimate your 1040 taxes. Complete instructions for using this calculator are on the screen.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  If you have a question about an online tax tool, call the IRS and ask if the calculation is computing correctly. Many of the free tax tools online may not be an accurate source for use with live tax returns.

There is a variety of tax calculators available online. These tax tools help you estimate your refund, determine your withholdings, figure out sales tax and determine self employment taxes. Tax calculators, while useful, won't always give an accurate calculation. It's important that you use the calculators with the understanding that the amount shown may change when actually filing taxes or receiving a paycheck. It's also important to know which calculator offers the calculations you need.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Tax withholding calculator

A tax withholding calculator tells taxpayers if they are having too much or too little tax withheld from their paychecks. Having too little tax withheld can cause a person to owe taxes at the end of the year. By using a tax withholding calculator, an employee can determine if they should change their tax withholdings through their employer.

I recommend: Find out more about the IRS Withholding Calculator and who should use it.

Sales tax calculator

If eligible, the IRS lets taxpayers deduct sales tax at the end of the year. One way to do this is to save all sales receipts for the year and calculate the amount of sales tax paid. Another way is to use a sales tax calculator that determines the amount of sales tax you can claim by using information from your 1040 tax form.

I recommend: Find out more about the Sales Tax Deduction Calculator and how to determine the amount you can claim.

Tax calculator software

Besides the free calculators offered on the IRS website, there are free downloads available. There are tax bracket calculators, tax lien calculators and tax form software available for free download.

I recommend: You can check out the types of calculator software available at ITNT.

Paycheck calculator

A paycheck calculator uses inputted information and shows an employee or employer the net pay and gross pay. There are salary paycheck calculators and hourly paycheck calculators. An employee can use a paycheck calculator to determine their take home pay after taxes and use the information to lobby for an appropriate raise.

I recommend: Learn more about paycheck calculators and how to use them at PayCycle.

Self employment tax calculator

Normally, an employer withholds taxes from your paycheck. Self employed individuals are responsible for covering taxes either throughout the year or at the end of the year. Using a self employment tax calculator can give you an estimated amount of taxes due at the end of the year. Knowing this helps the self employed set aside a little money at a time to pay taxes.

I recommend: Find out a little more about self employment taxes and use a self employment tax calculators at KJE Computer Solutions.

Marginal tax rate calculator

The marginal tax rate calculator can help determine the tax bracket your family or business falls into. By knowing your tax bracket, you'll have a better understanding of your tax liability each year. This sort of calculator can give you a reliable estimate of your tax liability.

I recommend: Use a marginal tax rate calculator at MortgageLoan.com.