Obtaining a tax ID?

[Twood]

I own a very small one man company called Fine Window Cleaning. I licensed the business in August. I have since been keeping track of business expenses such as supplies, gas, insurance and so on. I am fairly young with little knowledge on the tax part of running a business. How do I write these expenses off at the end of the year. Does my business need a federal tax ID? Where would I get one if it does? Thanks in advance for any responses. Feel free to give me directories to more info since this seems like a broad question to me.

I am assuming that you have started a business as a sole proprietorship and have not orginized as a corporation.

A sole proprietorship company (an individual) would report all your business income and expenses on your individual income tax return 1040 by using an attached form "Schedule C" ( http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040sc.pdf ) and "Schedule SE" ( http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040sse.pdf ). Schedule C lists gross income and takes expenses to arrive at net profit or loss that carries forward to page 1 of your 1040. Schedule SE takes the net profit and calculates self-employment tax of 15.3% on the net profit.

You apply and get a federal tax ID number with the IRS form SS-4.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fss4.pdf

You do not need the federal tax ID number if you are not using other workers/employees or are not buying and reselling products. Instead you can just use your social security number.

Use the "Schedule C" list of expenses as your guide for how to accumulate your expense totals for tax time at year end. Good luck.