Small Business Platforms Need to Alleviate Tax Prep Burden for Customers

I hate tax prep with a passion. As a business owner, preparing your taxes adds no value to your business. It doesn’t help you make money. It has nothing to do with your craft; it’s a bunch of administrative tasks. It’s the antithesis of why you’re in business — and the opposite of freedom.

Why more banks and small business platforms aren’t jumping to help their customers overcome the obstacles of tax prep is beyond me. But that void is what inspired me to create Tight.

Let me clarify — my rant isn’t about paying taxes. I know there is a purpose and value to the taxes we pay. To have a functioning society we need a common wallet from which we pay for essential services that benefit all of us. I get that.

What I don’t get, and what I don’t find justifiable, is how difficult and tedious tax preparation has become.

The IRS keeps making taxes more complex.

The U.S. tax code is complex. In a report to Congress back in 2012, the Tax Advocate Service reported that “the most serious problem facing taxpayers — and the IRS — is the complexity of the Internal Revenue Code (the ‘tax code’).” Yet it hasn’t been simplified. It’s only become more complex.

In an interview with NPR, Deborah Schenk, NYU professor of taxation and editor of Tax Law Review, stated that the blame can be put on Congress, which loves to add incentives. “Any problem we want to solve, let’s use the Tax Code,” said Schenk, “and the result is that every year it gets more and more complex.”

Beyond taxes themselves, small business owners generally have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars each year to have someone translate the Tax Code and tell them what they need to track and report, and what they owe the IRS.

No one can run a business and keep up with all the complexities of the Tax Code. Those who try run a high risk of making costly errors.

So every year, small business owners spend more and more time on tax prep and less time on their businesses.

Small business platforms can help.

My advice to business owners everywhere is to find ways to automate what you can. In the age of AI, tasks like tracking business expenses should not require setting aside hours for categorizing transactions and sorting receipts.

Administrative tasks should never get in the way of business, and with Tight, they don’t. Tight’s technology has been helping small businesses for years, averaging $5,600 in found tax savings per owner!

More small business platforms need to step in and help business owners save time. And they can do it with the simple addition of Tight's white-labeled API.

If you can hand business owners what they need to simplify tax prep on a silver platter, they will love you and be a loyal customer for the rest of their lives.

Saving business owners time helps them be more profitable. It means less time spent on administrative tasks, more time doing business — and with Tight, they’ll find more savings. Tax season is where a small business platform should shine by simplifying tax prep.