If you are married, you may wish to file a joint return, which usually means a lower tax, and figure your tax with your spouse. However, with the change in the tax laws you will want to obtain professional advice on tax matters. Parents use these figures to determine their allowable Child Care Credits. This may make your income very visible to the Internal Revenue Service more so than other types of income. Therefore, you should be especially careful to report all receipts from your business.
Accurate records are vitally important.
The question of how long to save your tax returns and business records always seem to come up. It is also true that each person you ask will give you a different answer. The IRS recommends that you keep your personal tax records for at least three years. Your business records, and particularly those of employees, should be kept for four years. If you are depreciating your house, you need to keep those records for at least three years after the sale of your house.