6 Year-End Tax Moves for Remote-First Founders
Sam's List Editorial | 2026-07-24
6 Year-End Tax Moves for Remote-First Founders Running a remote-first company gives you a distributed team, a lighter overhead, and a tax situation that is quietly more complicated than a founder in a single office ever deals with. Where you live, where your team works, and where your customers are can each create obligations, and most of the fixes have to happen before December 31. Here are six year-end moves that save remote-first founders money and headaches. The details vary by state and situation, so treat these as a checklist to work through with a professional, not a one-size answer. 1. Pin Down Your State Residency and Nexus This is the move remote founders most often ignore and most often regret. If you moved states during the year, spent months working from somewhere new, or have team members scattered across the country, you may have created tax obligations you did not intend. Residency determines where your personal income is taxed. Nexus determines where your business has to file and, increasingly, where it owes. Employees or contractors in another state can create both. Sort out your facts before year-end while you can still document days, addresses, and work locations. Getting this wrong can mean filing in states you never expected, and the rules differ enough that a specialist is worth the call. 2. Reconcile Contractor Payments and Collect W-9s Remote companies run on contractors, and contractors mean 1099s. If you wait until January to figure out who you paid and whether you have their tax information, you are setting up a scramble and risking penalties for late or missing forms. Before year-end, reconcile every contractor payment, confirm you have a current W-9 for anyone who will need a 1099, and flag anyone paid through platforms that may or may not handle reporting for you. Cleaning this up in December turns January filing into a formality instead of a fire drill. 3. Time Equipment and Software Purchases If you know you need new laptops, software subscriptions, or equipment for the team, the timing of the purchase affects which year you deduct it. Buying before December 31 can pull the deduction into the current year; waiting pushes it to next. The right timing depends on whether this year or next is your higher-income year, which is a planning question, not an automatic "buy everything now" answer. Accelerating deductions only helps if it fits your overall picture, so run it against your projected income rather than spending to save on taxes. 4. Revisit Your Entity and Reasonable Compensation If your remote business has grown, the...
