Tax savvy for small business
Curated by Brian Kim, CPA — every pick gets a plain-English summary and the key takeaways.
Brian Kim, CPA · 2.89M YouTube Subscribers →What this book actually teaches
- 01Entity selection — sole proprietorship, LLC, S corporation, or C corporation — affects self-employment tax, pass-through income treatment, and compliance burden in ways that are irreversible without cost; the entity chapters make this the right book to read before forming a business, not after.
- 02The documentation and recordkeeping emphasis throughout the deduction chapters reflects the reality of how IRS audits work — a deductible expense with no contemporaneous records becomes an unsubstantiated claim, and Daily explains exactly what "contemporaneous" means for each expense category.
- 03Mixed personal-business expenses (shared vehicle, cell phone, home internet) require an allocation method the IRS will accept — the book explains defensible allocation approaches and the proportions that trigger scrutiny.
- 04Estimated quarterly tax payments are one of the most common first-year self-employment mistakes; the book explains how to calculate them, avoid underpayment penalties, and adjust mid-year when income is higher or lower than projected.
- 05The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 changed the QBI deduction, bonus depreciation, and business meal deduction rules this book covers — readers should confirm they have a post-2017 edition before using the deduction analysis for current planning.
- 06The audit and IRS dispute resolution chapters explain what triggers audits, how correspondence and field audits differ, and what the appeals process provides — context most small business tax books skip.
What's in this book
Tax Savvy for Small Business by Frederick W. Daily is NOLO's canonical small business tax guide and one of the most widely recommended introductory tax books for business owners. Daily, a tax attorney, wrote the book to address a gap: most tax reference material is either written for tax professionals (too dense, too code-centric) or for individuals (too focused on W-2 wages and itemized deductions). Small business owners need something different — a practical explanation of how the federal tax system applies to their specific situation, written in plain English, with enough specificity to make real decisions.
The book covers the full small business tax landscape in roughly four parts. The entity selection chapters explain how income is taxed differently depending on whether the business operates as a sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, S corporation, or C corporation — and why the choice matters for self-employment tax, pass-through income, retained earnings, and the administrative burden of compliance. These chapters are the most valuable for pre-launch or early-stage business owners who haven't yet chosen a structure.
The deduction chapters are the book's center of gravity. Daily covers the standard deductions available to all businesses — business travel, vehicle expenses (with the actual cost versus standard mileage rate comparison), home office, equipment expensing under Section 179, meals, and professional fees — with a consistent emphasis on what documentation the IRS actually requires and what record-keeping mistakes turn deductible expenses into unsubstantiated claims in an audit. The treatment of mixed personal-business expenses (a vehicle used partly for commuting, a cell phone that handles personal and business calls) is particularly practical — Daily explains the allocation methods and what proportions are defensible.
Tax planning receives more attention than in most basic tax guides. Daily covers the timing of income and deductions to shift tax liability between years, the use of retirement accounts (SEP-IRA, SIMPLE IRA, Solo 401(k)) to reduce self-employment income, and the interaction between estimated quarterly tax payments and year-end planning. The estimated tax chapter — explaining how to calculate quarterly payments, how to avoid underpayment penalties, and how to adjust payments mid-year when income changes — addresses a common and expensive problem for first-year self-employed workers.
Audit risk and IRS dispute resolution are covered more thoroughly than in most comparable books. Daily explains what audit triggers look like, how correspondence audits versus field audits differ, and what the IRS appeals process provides. For a small business owner who has never faced an audit, this context is genuinely useful.
Edition year matters here as it does throughout NOLO's tax library. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 changed the QBI deduction, bonus depreciation rules, the business meal deduction, and other provisions this book covers — post-2017 editions reflect these changes; earlier editions do not.
Where it falls short
the book is a survey, and its breadth means no single topic gets the depth available from NOLO's dedicated titles (Fishman's home-office or self-employment tax guides, for example). Partnership taxation and multi-member LLC mechanics receive lighter treatment than their complexity warrants. State income tax is not covered.
Verdict
the best all-in-one small business tax introduction available for non-accountants. A post-TCJA edition belongs on the shelf of any business owner who doesn't already have a trusted tax advisor explaining this terrain.
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