By the Time You Get Your Tax Bill, It's Too Late to Do Anything About It
Updated: Sep 8
There is a conversation we have every March that we wish we never had to have again.
A business owner sits after we finish the return. We turn the screen around and show them the number. And they look at it the way you'd look at a bill for a car repair you didn't authorize. Then they ask the question we dread, because it is a completely reasonable question and we hate our answer to it.
"Is there anything we can do about this?"
Almost always, no. Not because we don't want to. Because the year is closed. December 31 came and went, and with it went nearly every decision that would have changed that number. By March we are not your advisors anymore. We are historians. We are writing down what already happened.
That is why we are writing this to you now, in September, instead of in March.
Your 2026 tax bill is being decided right now
This is the part that catches people. The bill shows up in the spring, so it feels like a spring problem. It isn't. Your 2026 tax bill is being built today, and tomorrow, and every day between now and the end of December. April is not when it gets decided. April is when you find out.
You have about four months of decision-making left, and then four months of paperwork. Most owners spend all their energy on the paperwork half, which is the half where nothing can be changed.
The first date on the calendar is September 15
Your third quarter estimated payment is due September 15. For a lot of owners, that payment gets made the same way it always gets made — take last year's number, send it in, move on.
If this year looks like last year, that's fine. If this year has been better than last year, that number is wrong, and it has been quietly wrong since April. You are not just underpaying. You are also accruing an underpayment penalty and interest on top of a bill you don't know about yet. It is the most avoidable cost in the entire tax code and we see it constantly.
One projection tells you whether the number you're about to send is the right one.
What can still be changed, and what can't
Here is what is still genuinely on the table between now and December 31:
How you are paying yourself, and whether that method still fits the business
Whether equipment or vehicle purchases land on this year's return or next year's
Whether a retirement plan exists for you and your employees this year
The timing of income and expenses around year end
Health insurance handling for owners, which has to be done a specific way and done before the last payroll
Your entity structure and elections going into 2027
And here is what is on the table in March: filing an extension. That's about it. An extension gives you more time to file. It does not give you more time to pay, and it does not change what you owe by a dollar.
What this actually costs when it goes wrong
The money is only part of it. A surprise tax bill arrives in April, which for most of the small businesses we work with is the tightest cash quarter of the year. Winter receivables are slow. You may have just made a Q1 estimated payment on top of it. So the bill doesn't just cost you the tax — it costs you a line of credit draw, or a credit card balance, or the equipment purchase you had planned for spring.
The rest of it is the part nobody puts on a balance sheet. It is the Sunday night where you are running numbers in your head instead of sleeping. It is deciding, in April, whether you can still afford the thing you already promised your family in January.
What it looks like on the other side
When we do this in the fall, the difference is not that you owe nothing. Sometimes you still owe. The difference is that you know in October what you're going to owe in April, and you have five months to set the money aside a little at a time instead of finding it all at once.
You get to make decisions with real information. Whether to buy the truck. Whether to take the December distribution. Whether this is the year to put a retirement plan in place. Those are business decisions, and you can only make them well if you know what they cost.
And you get your spring back. Tax season stops being a thing that happens to you.
What it takes to get started
Less than you think. To run a real projection we need:
Your profit and loss statement through August
Your balance sheet as of August 31
A payroll summary through your most recent check date
Last year's tax return
A short list of anything unusual that happened this year — a sale, a settlement, a big month, a change at home
That is one afternoon of pulling reports and about an hour of conversation. If your books are behind, tell us that too. It's common, it's fixable, and it's better said out loud than discovered in March.
Who we are
Business Advisory Services LLC has been working with small business owners for more than twenty years, with offices in Middleton and Eau Claire, serving clients across Wisconsin and the surrounding states. We handle accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, tax preparation, tax resolution, and the ordinary business advice that comes with knowing someone's numbers well.
Let's find out where you stand
If you'd like to know your number before the year closes instead of after, call the office at 608-831-4900, ext. 801. Or call us on our cell phone at 608-347-3010. Tell us what kind of year it's been and we'll go from there. There's no pressure in it — worst case, you find out you're in good shape, and you get to stop wondering.
This is the first of six articles we're publishing over the next several weeks about the fall planning window. Next week: what eight months of numbers can tell you about April.
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