Tax Tips for Doulas - 3 Ways to Maximize your Tax Deductions at the End of the Year
Tax Tips for Doulas
We all dread tax time, but here are some tips to help you make the most of those small business tax deductions for your doula business! If you can stay on top of these throughout the year and save your receipts in one place, that makes things so much easier at tax time.
Also, I highly recommend working with a local accountant who specializes in small businesses who can help you maximize your deductions. The first year of my business I wanted to save money and I filed my taxes on my own. The next year, I had an accountant do it and even though I paid her, I still ended up saving money. This can be a great networking tool as well - ask around among the local doulas to see who they recommend.
Here’s the top 3 tax deductions most doulas don’t take full advantage of:
Mileage - Keeping track of your mileage is one of the biggest ways to save on taxes as a doula. The IRS allows self-employed individuals to use a standard mileage rate, which for 2022 business driving is 65.5 cents per mile for 2023. (In plain terms, you can deduct around .65 for every mile you drove this year off of your earnings) This adds up quickly and really makes a difference on what you owe in taxes!
You can deduct for every mile that you drive to and from a client’s house for a meeting or a shift, to and from hospitals for births, to and from networking meetings & events, office supply stores, etc.
The easiest way to keep track of this is by using an app like MileIG, Stride or Hurdlr.
If you’re reading this now at the end of the year and realizing you haven’t kept track of your mileage, it is totally worth it to go back and make a list! Go through all your client visits/drives for work and use a map app to look up what the mileage was.I’m old school and keep an Excel spreadsheet of all my postpartum doula shifts each month that shows the hours I worked and the rate I billed. I also include a column for mileage for that shift to make it easy to add up at the end of each month.
Every year, I’m amazed at how much money this saves me!
And bonus - be sure to also keep track of what you spend on tolls & parking! Those are deductions as well.
Education expenses - As a small business owner, you can also deduct what you spend on education for your doula business. Any time you spend money to advance your skills or improve your job skills, that’s a tax deduction! Just be sure to have all your receipts.
This means, that the cost of your doula training and any other add-on trainings reduces what you will owe in taxes (so hello! Register for some marketing classes before the end of the year!) https://www.thedouladarcy.com/classes
A few years ago, I splurged and spent thousands on a business training that I wanted to do and it ended up being the difference between owing taxes and getting a refund that year! In other words, the expensive training didn’t end up costing as much as it actually did!Advertising - Another tax deduction that doulas don’t take full advantage of is the “Advertising” category. You can deduct the costs of all your advertising expenses, this includes:
website design, development and hosting
business cards, brochures, rack cards, fliers you had printed
Facebook or Google ads
subscriptions you use to promote your business (Doulamatch, Canva, Mailchimp, etc)
Be sure to also include your expenses for Liability insurance, books you read for your training or further education and your Doula organization membership fees. These business expenses are all tax deductions that will reduce the amount of taxes that you owe.
Want to purchase some of my self-paced online classes before the end of the year to take advantage of the tax deductions?
All classes are self-paced, so you can purchase them now and watch them when you have time. You can get 30 Days of Instagram Posts, join My Doula Village or get one of my self-paced classes
The Doula Darcy
is a doula business & marketing coach. She loves helping doulas get more clients by focusing on marketing.
She has several self-paced online classes that would be great tax deductions!