   Hiring freelancers - report to the IRS?
  I started a company with an investor. As the game I am developing has no income yet, I don't have to pay any taxes on the company right now BUT...Will I need to report anything to the IRS in terms of freelance graphics artists I hire? I guess as I get going I need to figure out what I need to track and how I can get the info where it needs to go. I have hardware, software, and freelancer expenses. Since my company is an LLC and I have an investor, I need to make sure i do everything very uniform.I thought about using Quickbooks but it's really overkill and it doesn't help me with tax stuff. I know there are tax programs out there, but I don't think I need to worry about that yet since, as I said, there's nothing to tax...I just need to figure out if I'm supposed to report my business expenses to the IRS to they know I didnt just take all the investment money and stuff it in my personal bank account.   
  There are federal laws and state/local laws that might affect you, you should probably talk to someone familiar with these business issues in your area (:its like asking for legal advice on the internet... you are surely going to get lots of answers, but are they right?  If not... what recourse do you have when you get sued, audited etc? hehe...best to find a professional and pay them for their services so you have someone to come after if they gave you bad advice :P   ;  Talk to the SBA. See what tax advice they have to offer.For a small amount of money you just report the expense, let the freelancer report his income. Unless I just gave you bad advice, then don't.   ;Quote:Original post by Tom SloperTalk to the SBA. See what tax advice they have to offer.For a small amount of money you just report the expense, let the freelancer report his income. Unless I just gave you bad advice, then don't.To add to this - here's the link to the Small Business Association - http://www.sba.gov/Even if this site doesn't answer your question directly, it's an amazing site with a plethora of information for start up businesses.While I'm no lawyer by any means, and please take my advice with a grain of salt, it would seem to me that you'd want to have a business license when reporting anything financially to the IRS.  This can be expense to a start up but I'm pretty sure it's a necessary step in doing so...as I've learned in accounting...there's always that miscellaneous category that you can stick almost anything into ;)   ;  I've been looking into stuff. It's weird...the game will take a year of development and then it will be released. So there's no income during that time. So I always looked at taxes as a: pay them if you've got an income, so I wonder if I really need to do anything. Once the game releases I'll be the only employee, which will make it easy, but it looks like the toughest part is when it's NOT making money (as in figuring what I need to tell the IRS).   