General Tax Info
If you make less than $600 in commissions per year with the Juice Plus+ Company
then the company is not required by law to send a 1099 Form to you or the IRS. And, you
can view your earnings on your virtual office website by using the following steps:
Go into your new virtual office homepage, select Personal File, then click on "My
Earnings Summary". On that page, you'll click on "Statement Displayed on Page" and
then you’ll click on the arrow under "Statement Date" for the business month you wish to
view. Then, click on "Process Request" at the bottom of the screen and that business
month's earnings will appear. Therefore, you can find the checks for the entire year shown
and you can then print out each check's statement issued to you, which will give your
earnings data, including deductions.
It is not possible to view the Form 1099 on the website for security reasons and the
original tax forms are mailed out by January 31st of each new year to eligible distributors.
However, when someone does not earn $600.00 during a calendar year, reporting their
distributor earnings is their sole responsibility as distributors are on the honor system.
And, if you have any questions about filing your tax return with earned commissions, we
are not allowed to provide any tax advice. So, your local tax accountant or consultant
should answer any questions you may have and they'd use your monthly earnings
statements as a guide. Also, for future reference, the Juice Plus Company's Tax ID
number is 02-4819292.
When starting a new business and plan to continue it – you can take a loss for 3 of the first
5 years. So even though you don’t get a 1099 form because you earned less than
$600 you can still file a Schedule C with taxes and include all of your expenses from Juice
Plus and show a loss for the year which will lower the total tax you will pay Uncle Sam!
If you make more than $600 in commissions and bonuses (but not Retail Profit) or
more than $5,000.00 gross sales per year the company mails out a 1099 to you and to
the IRS. If you do not receive a 1099 form by February then you did not have enough
commissions or sales to qualify.
If your business is fairly small and you are just keeping things simple, your most important
thing is simply to track your income and expenses. If you give your accountant your 1099
(reported income) and an accounting of your business expenses for the year you are done.
Your tax return should reflect that you have a small business and you’ll be able to write off
a portion of your expenses but not as much as if you were incorporated (see below). Keep
track of all receipts so you can submit receipts for the business (see list below).
Once you earn more than $6,000 it is advisable to choose a business name (ours is
Wellness Matters, Inc.) and open an “S” corporation. An “S” corporation form of
business is most often used by owners who want the “limited liability” feature of the
corporation, but do not want the tax consequences of a “C” corporation. In other words
the owners either want to avoid the “double taxation” problem, or have the business
income taxed at individual rates rather than corporate rates, or both. For more
information regarding “S” corporation you can visit the Internal Revenue Service at
www.irs.gov and download “S” corporation form 1120S. The typical cost for
establishing an “S” corporation is $400 - $600 and it is tax deductible.
Once you establish an “S” corporation you can deduct business expenses on your income
tax return. These are the current operating costs of running your business. To be
deductible, a business expense must be both ordinary and necessary. An ordinary
expense is one that is common and accepted in our field of business, trade, or profession.
A necessary expense is one that is helpful and appropriate for your business, trade, or
profession. For additional information and examples download www.irs.gov Publication
535, Business Expenses.
If your distributorship is under a corporation, you will not receive a 1099 from NSA.
Basically, all we have do to is add up the 1099 total that the JP+ Company gives us, + any
income we received from the direct sale of product or tools that we have sold. And that is our
INCOME.
Then we add up all our business expenses (Credit card, checking account, and cash receipts,
Mileage) and deduct those from our INCOME...and we have our NET earnings for the year.
General Business Info
Have a separate checking account and credit card for your business. It is very important to
keep your personal and business expenses separate. Also, it is a good idea to choose a credit card
that gives you airline mileage for traveling to the conventions!
Keep file folders for the following:
Packing slips for JP product
Monthly receipt files: One for check/credit cards and 1 for cash receipts
Bank Statements
Credit Card statements
General Examples of Business Expenses
(Note: you may only write off what is used for your business for example you could not
write off your entire phone bill if it is not solely utilized for business purposes. Your
CPA can guide you on which receipts are acceptable and what type of return you need to
do each year)
Advertising
Automobile
Bank fees
Charity
Client Development
Coaching/Consulting
Conference Tickets
Credit Card fees
Depreciation Expense
Distributor application fees and administrative fees that NSA charges each month
Entertainment
Gifts
Interest Expense
Marketing
Meetings/Seminars
Miscellaneous
Office expense
Computer
Officer’s salary
Payroll Service (if you’re incorporated and pay an officer you’ll want this)
Postage and Delivery
Printing and Reproduction
Professional Fees
Computer
Graphic design
Accounting
Legal Fees
Promo Plus
Promotional
Publications
Secretary
Supplies
Office
Taxes (If you are incorporated you will pay these – see below)
CO sales tax
Federal unemployment
Federal withholding
Medicare witholding
Social Security witholding
State unemployment
State witholding
Telephone
Trade Show
Training/sales development
Travel
Airline
Automobile
Food
Hotel
Meals
Utilities
Gas and Electric
Water
Choose a method for tracking business expenses.
Option #1 - use a spreadsheet (see sample spreadsheet) summarizing the different
categories by the month and then total them at the end of the year.
Option #2 - You can also use Quick Books or Quicken accounting software to track
your business.
Option #3 - You can also hire bookkeepers to take your receipts, credit card and
bank statements and put it into a bookkeeping program...this might be something
you think about as your business grows.