Tax Planning and Tax Preparation Tools

Four short questions and you have your estimated-payment schedule for the year, federal and California, with the safe-harbour figure worked out alongside it. Tick each payment off as you make it and the remaining quarters adjust.

Export the schedule as a PDF, or as a spreadsheet you can edit and import back if your numbers change mid-year. Due dates come out as calendar reminders. It runs entirely in your browser, so nothing you enter reaches us.

You have probably heard that once your business makes $100,000, you should become an S corporation. That advice is wrong often enough that we built this tool. It asks two questions: how much your business earns, and what you would pay someone else to do your job. Then it estimates what an S-corp would save you in tax each year and gives you a straight answer: worth a conversation, or not worth the extra paperwork.

It is built for business owners who keep hearing they should switch and want a real number before they spend money on payroll and filings. It takes about a minute, and nothing you type leaves your browser.

Sole proprietor, S corporation and C corporation side by side on your own numbers. It is built for California, so it prices the things that actually decide the answer here: the pass-through entity elective tax a sole proprietor is not allowed to elect, the §199A wage limit an owner salary unlocks, state disability insurance that no longer stops at a wage cap, and the 1.5% franchise tax with its $800 floor.

It also counts what a C corporation only defers rather than saves, and tells you when an election would cost you money instead of assuming it helps. Every rate is verified against irs.gov and ftb.ca.gov and cited on the page, and nothing you enter leaves your browser.

Most owners know the 401(k) number and stop there. If your business is profitable, the amount you can actually put away before tax is often several times that. This puts the three real options side by side on your own figures: a SEP-IRA, a solo 401(k), and a solo 401(k) paired with a cash balance plan.

It is built for California, where the same deduction is worth more than in a state with no income tax, and it shows the part most calculators hide: contributing cuts your qualified business income, so the saving is less than your tax rate suggests. Cash balance figures are shown as a screening range, because an actuary sets the real number. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.

If you own the building your business works from, you have probably been pitched a cost segregation study. The write-off is real and it is larger than ever now that 100% bonus depreciation is permanent again. The number in the pitch is a federal number.

California has never adopted bonus depreciation and caps §179 at $25,000 against the federal $2,560,000, so the state gives you a fraction of what the study is sold on. This estimates both halves, shows the federal-to-California gap you will carry for the life of the property, and is honest that the benefit is timing rather than a permanent saving. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.

Most of this year's tax planning has to be done by December 31. This lists the moves a California business owner can still make - a retirement plan, the pass-through entity tax election, equipment, a payroll true-up and more - with a rough dollar range on your own figures and the date each one closes.

It figures the federal and California returns separately, shows a range where facts it does not ask about could change the answer, and links each move to the tool that prices it properly. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.

The 2026 federal tax law changed what charitable giving saves: a new 0.5% floor, a small deduction for people who do not itemize, and a cut for the top bracket. California adopted none of it.

This compares the ways to give what you already give - every year or bunched every two or three years, cash or appreciated stock, and straight from an IRA once you are 70½ - with federal and California shown separately. Every comparison gives the same total. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.

A rental loss usually cannot touch your wages or business income. Three rules can change that: a short-term rental you work in yourself, real estate professional status, and a $25,000 allowance for moderate incomes. California does not recognize real estate professionals at all.

This checks one property against those rules and estimates what the loss is worth, with the federal and California answers side by side. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.