2025 U.S. Small Business Tax Checklist

Tax season begins as soon as the new year starts. The official deadlines to file your business tax returns are March 15, 2025 for S corporations and Partnerships, and April 15, 2025 for sole proprietors and calendar year C corporations.

To help you stay ahead of deadlines this year, we put together a collection of tax preparation checklists that outline the basics you’ll need to address before you file.

Tax preparation for business owners

In order to meet the IRS requirements for filing your income tax returns, you’ll need accurate, up-to-date bookkeeping for the whole tax year. Many of the items on the checklist assume that you already have bookkeeping done (such as the trial balance, which is a summary of your financial transactions over the year).

The checklist won’t tell you everything you need to know about taxes—for example, it doesn’t cover making tax payments—but it will set you up for success so that you have every financial document you need for your CPA to file your taxes.

Download the checklist that corresponds to your business’s legal structure, and use it to gather and prepare all of the information you’ll need to file your small business tax return.