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A Neurodivergent Guide to Doing Business Taxes - A DIY TurboTax Journey

Did you read that right? Yep! For those who have trouble understanding the regular lingo and terminology, I am breaking it down here to help you get through TurboTax. This is my first year struggling through TurboTax so I thought I would share! I am using Etsy and eBay specifically and all this tax work is based around using those two platforms. If you have your own website you have sold off of (using Square or Paypal) I will touch on that as well!


Total Time: 1 Working Day (8-10 hours)

  • 1/2 Day Compiling Data (4-6 hours)

  • 4 hours in TurboTax

  • (optional 1 hour session with TurboTax full-assist)


How to do Business Taxes


I think the first thing you should know as a business owner, especially if you sell on Etsy or eBay, is that you need to document everything, but you actually report very few things to the IRS. The key is to NOT overthink. Easier said than done. Try to document everything as it happens so you do not need to spend 8 hours like I did compiling it all into categories at the last minute.


Some Tips:

  • Compile receipts for business into separate container

  • Track inventory on an almost daily basis (I do it by hand)

  • Add supplies to a spreadsheet to track as you receive them

  • Do NOT report something if you have no track record - AKA a receipt of some sort.


Let us start with the expenses.

Expenses


I am including a pie chart of what I broke my expenses down into here:



Your first steps are going to be to break down everything you bought into specific categories so you can properly sum them up and insert them in TurboTax where they belong.


The main categories I found beneficial are:

  • Tool (i.e. screwdriver, things that will eventually wear within a year or so)

  • Equipment (computer, power supply, camera, power washer, 3D printer, t-shirt press, things that will last greater than 2 years in my opinion)

  • Supply (a supply is something that is easily used or replaced at a consistent rate, think of gift wrap, stationary, pens, pencils, packaging tape, labels -) This can be confused with office supplies, still keep office supplies separate from supplies for your actual product.

  • Shipping Boxes/Labels/Fees (any shipping you paid for to ship (USPS for example)).

  • Office (printer supplies - printer ink, paper, sticky notes, staples)

  • Fixtures (retail business or office) - Desks, Cabinets, Displays

  • Marketing - Items you gave away for free, social media marketing, google ad marketing, business cards

  • Inventory (there are two methods to report - if you are smaller which most will be, you do not need to report inventory, but you do need to keep track of each individual sale and what expenses came along with it) That being said - your inventory is NOT a write off until it is sold. I would suggest this for any new business with physical inventory.


What is the best way to set up categories? (Note this is just for Amazon purchases - you will need a new tab for each place your bought inventory or supplies from)



  1. I listed out every single purchase as a line item with its cost. Vague? Let me add a snap shot that is correlated to my pie chart above ^^. Start there.

  2. Add columns for your categories - add a filter to top row

  3. Mark an x for each line item you added to categorize it

  4. Total Up at Bottom of each category (do this for each place of business you have receipts for)

  5. The final Tab will summarize all of this information. If you are new to excel you can click in the box and hit = and go to the sheet where the total is to populate the values so they are always updating if you change something.


Ok, so your expenses are now summarized. What is next? Let us break down each column but starting with Inventory. (inventory needs its own sheet).


Inventory (cash-basis method)


eBay, Etsy, PayPal, Square - My payment platforms


Inventory. Make sure your inventory is accounted for in its own excel sheet (outside of expenses) This means you need to see how much your product cost you (me for example, it includes a watch, a new watch battery, and gift wrap.) These are the items you will deduct as an expense (if you are using the cash basis method) - You will add these all up and TurboTax will have Miscellaneous lines to add your inventory "COGS".



Here is my hot mess of a sheet to get your started. If it works, it works!

  • I labeled mine "profit and loss"

  • One Tab per Month

  • Filters for each selling platform - On my chart it is labeled SKU (new chart will actually have a SKU as I label inventory)

  • Cost of Good = what you paid for base product

  • Packaging = Shipping cost (you can just deduct this in shipping since boxes are consumable) - I won't have this for 2026 spreadsheet

  • Gift Box = additional cost of good (anything surrounding the good for increased value)

  • Repair = additional items to repair the good (watch battery / new glass face / new band)

  • My time = optional (your time does not get a tax write off if you are sole proprietor)

  • Sold Price = Actual sold price before fees taken on your selling platform

  • Marketing = Marketing Fees on your selling platform

  • Fees = additional fees on your selling platform

  • Shipping = shipping label $

  • Set up a margin for yourself to see how well you are performing

  • No incl cost = profit before COGS (cost of good)


Subscriptions


Don't forget your subscriptions! Your Amazon Prime, your phone bill, Adobe Premiere, anything that is a "learning" subscription related to your business. All of these things are considered business related if you are using consistently for business. You will get a % back under expenses.


  • Amazon Prime Business

  • Adobe

  • Magazine Subscriptions for learning materials

  • Mail Chimp

  • Website / Email for business use


See Subscriptions / Online Tool Subscription**


Marketing


What is considered marketing and did you get it all covered in your spreadsheet? Maybe not so think outside of the box of things you used for marketing materials or in-person marketing you may have forgotten.

  • Trade Shows

  • Business Cards

  • Flyers

  • Free give aways - raffles

  • Free giveaways with subscriptions

  • Website marketing

  • FB marketing

  • Google Ads


Shipping


  • Boxes

  • USPS Fees

  • Shipping Labels

  • Bubble Wrap

  • Packaging Materials

  • Tape


Office / Printer

  • New printer

  • Office Fixtures / Organizers

  • Stapler

  • Hole Punch

  • Paper

  • Ink


Supply

  • anything related to your product to improve that is not easily accounted for. Things that do not fit into the categories above will probably fall under "supply"


Tool

  • Rule of Chelsea's Thumb: "Anything that will last less than 1-2 years"

  • Screwdriver

  • Hammer

  • Drill Bits

  • My examples: (watch press, watch tool kit, leather tool kit)


Equipment

  • Heavy duty equipment

  • Equipment under $2500 can be written off under expenses if you are a small business. Your receipt total must be under $2500

  • My examples: (ultrasonic jewelry cleaner, drill press, t-shirt press, laser etching machine, camera, computer)


Website

  • If you did not write it off in any other category, make sure you write off website domain and email costs in your miscellaneous TurboTax lines available.


Food/ Transportation

  • Etsy/eBay did not require me to write off any food or transportation. Make sure you look into these if you have receipts for your business.

    • You get 50% deducted off meals for taxes

    • You get deductions for business car purchases or rentals

    • Deductions for tabs / Insurance costs


Anything is a business expense, at least up to a percentage if you just know where to look. I hope these tips were helpful and would love to hear any tips and tricks from everyone out there doing their business taxes for the first time this year!


TurboTax


Last but not least. Entering your expenses into TurboTax. It is actually very user friendly and has little help question marks next to almost everything, if you need help you can get the TurboTax assist bundle and they will answer any questions quite quickly.


#1 Start up Costs


thing to remember as first time business filer - your start up costs can be written off for this year OR credited over a few years like you would with equipment purchases discussed. There is a spot where it asks you in turbotax if you have start-up costs, say yes.


Your LLC registration and anything that came before your established business is going to be considered your start up costs. People you paid, website you built could be one, the LLC fees you paid, your business license.


#2 Full Service TurboTax


Might I mention, I had to have two, 2-hour conversations with an agent on TurboTax to understand what I needed. So, if you need to... tack on the extra two hours to talk to someone in full service and then pop back to self-service when your questions are answered.


There are some questions below that I thought were important to address. Thank you for reading!


~DIY With Chelsea

2.9.2025


Q&A


  1. Q: Do I include sales tax as part of the purchased good price?

    1. A: Yes!

  2. Q: Are digital assets something that need to be considered in taxes?

    1. A: Yes, but if you are not reporting inventory it does not matter. Still keep track!

  3. Q: What is the difference between tool and equipment.

    1. A: Think of a tool as something that goes bad quickly or can break. Equipment is something that is going to last 5+ years and can be either written off (under 2500) or depreciated over a set amount of years. I believe 7.

  4. Q: What is depreciation?

    1. A: It involves taking a deduction slowly over many years rather than up front. Why would you ask is this beneficial? It is a way to match the expenses with revenue generation.

  5. What if I generated no income in the end of the year?

    1. A: Your expenses should offset what you owe, if it is your first year you will get some money back

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