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I would love to start this conversation!! Where to begin?
A year ago my head was in the clouds as everyone told me to start a nonprofit of my own. Native American women have SO much funding available to them, everything for services available for free or discount, blah blah blah. Uhm, yeah, haha. Not so much.
The IRS has been a thorn in our side, especially with the covid backups. It took 7 1/2 months to get our letter of determination and then as we were attempting to register in the places needed online, there were demands for paperwork even the IRS agents had no clue what I was asking for.Over the summer we did a living history event and I wanted to try to sell some products while we were there. Mention “+tax” and people run the other direction because it’s a fair type event, so people want an even $ amount as the visit the vendor tents. I spent 2 days with a tax calculator figuring out how to price our items so after tax it came out to an even dollar amount. Fun stuff. Not.
I have yet to use our local tax break when buying supplies because I’m still not sure how to do all of the paperwork! 🙁 Our CPA isn’t real good at explaining things & at $150/hr that adds up quick when there is no funding coming in. We’ve tried to find a new CPA (cheaper) but we can’t find one locally that will even talk to us. We had the same problem finding a lawyer to get incorporated. I finally went through the state bar search and we received 1 response, so grabbed him up on his offer of help immediately. As it turns out, he’s also Native American.
How do you get through all this tax stuff without a CPA? I would very much like to dump the one we have and take care of our own taxes, save the money and the hassles he presents in trying to reach him when we need him and not doing everything he is supposed to at a time. This has been a wild ride, that’s for sure!