2025 Episode 2: Business Owners Can Save Money with Streamlined Tax Filing

Learn about all the updates and deadlines in this episode from Jefferson County Director of Revenue Scott Moore.

For more information from the Department of Revenue click here

Have an idea for a County podcast? Contact the Director of Public Information, Helen Hays at haysh@jccal.org

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:19

Welcome to Jefferson County's podcast for the people. I'm your host, Chiara Morrow, in the public information office here at Jefferson County Commission. We are kicking off our show with our recurring guest and such a beloved part of the Jefferson County Commission, Director of Revenue, Scott Moore. Welcome. Good morning, Scott.

Speaker 0:39

Good morning. Glad to be here.

Speaker 1 0:40

Thank you. We're going to talk about some things going on with business tax returns, including the reduction on them and some of the highlights that's going on this year, including the tax filing changes and any other information you want to give to business owners. Let's start out with the reduction on the business tax returns. Give us some insight about that on what business owners need to know this year as they get ready to make their returns.

Speaker 1:09

All right. Well, business owners this year will see a change in their tax filings in regards to their sales and use taxes. What we're doing, we've always had since 2003, we've had a dual tax return system to where we had a 2% tax and they had to file two separate returns for those. Well, we're consolidating those into one filing. So it should businesses a lot of time in preparing tax returns because it'll go. Some businesses pay multiple tax returns each month, so it'll cut those numbers in half.

Speaker 1 1:40

So that's always a plus when numbers can get cut in half. Talk a little bit about like how they can help maximize that. Like what are some things they can put in place so they'll be prepared so they can meet the deadlines. Anything with that?

Speaker 1:52

It starts with the tax filings for February for the January taxes. So what they need to do is just be mindful that the state has a Mile Alabama taxes system to where most taxpayers about 90% file online. Before they were filing on two locality codes, one 7037 and the other one was 7337. They'll consolidate all that onto one tax filing on the 70-37 locality code, and it'll already have the rates in there and everything. They'll just enter their gross sales, it'll do the calculations, and they should be good to go.

Speaker 1 2:26

Awesome. Well, that's always great. So we have these things in place. Is there anything else business owners need to know going into the month of February and how they can keep a well oil machine because that's important, especially when saving on costs, right?

Speaker 2:42

Certainly. And by doing uh by the enacting this change, I think it's gonna really they're really gonna see a cost savings too, because filing two returns, they were having most businesses were collecting two percent and having to split that into two one percent tax returns. So I think this is really gonna help, and it's gonna let the businesses do what they do best, and that's you know, sell their products, provide their services, those sorts of things, manufacture their products, and not spend their time preparing two tax returns when only one was required all this time.

Speaker 1 3:13

Extremely important and great information. Anything else you want to leave today? Do we have some deadlines coming up?

Speaker 3:20

We do. The deadline has not changed. January tax returns are still due on February 20th for monthly filers, quarterly filers, of course, it'll be due on April 20th. So nothing's really changed there. It's just gonna consolidate those into one return instead of two returns. We did not consolidate the returns into the sales and use still have to be separate returns, but they can combine the two 1%.

Speaker 1 3:44

Is there anywhere that they should go to get more information? Any websites?

Speaker 3:48

Yes, they can visit the Jefferson County website and select the revenue department. We have information there, including um frequently asked questions, the updated tax returns and tables, those sorts of things. They just visit our website at jccal.org and select a revenue department.

Speaker 1 4:05

Awesome. And we'll have all that information located within the description of this podcast. Scott, thank you so much for being on today. We certainly appreciate your time, and we'll continue to have you on to update all the citizens on the latest with the revenue department, especially business owners and those that are seeing some great systems that you have in place during your leadership. So we'll keep everyone posted. Thank you all so much for tuning in today. And if nothing else, nope, nothing else. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Thank you all so much. This concludes Jefferson County's podcast for the people. More information will be listed below. We'll see you next time.