Lili, the banking app built for freelance workers with over 500,000 users, announced the first-ever ‘Tax Optimizer’ toolkit allowing independent workers to be organized and prepared for the upcoming 2022 tax season.
“People are turning their backs on the traditional workforce,” said Lilac Bar David, CEO and co-founder of Lili. “There are well over 10M unfilled jobs because more people are freelancing now than ever. But this upcoming tax season could be brutal for all the first-timers, who may have a rude awakening when they realize how tough managing their finances can be. Our research shows that the majority of Gen Z freelancers feel anxious about taxes. We want to remove this anxiety and help people get ahead of the curve so they are only paying what they owe and not scrambling this tax season.”
Lili’s new service will include advanced categorization tools to track tax write-offs throughout the year, a tax bucket that automatically sets money aside every time a freelancer gets paid, auto-generated quarterly business reports, and the ability to pre-fill their Schedule C form at the end of the year.
Most of these features are free to use with no account minimum, allowing independent workers to finally take control of their finances ahead of one of the most financially stressful times of the year.
Freelancers don’t have employer-sponsored benefits, IT support, access to HR or accounting departments and while they do have access to business deductions, the majority don’t take full advantage of their write offs. Improperly tracking business expenses can cost a freelancer thousands of dollars, and up until now, organizing finances would take weeks of time that could be spent working and earning more money.
A recent study of over 1,000 Gen Z respondents (ages 18-24) conducted by Lili found that over 90% did not know self-employed workers should be paying taxes quarterly, and over 50% did not know freelancers/self-employed workers can deduct business expenses from their taxes.
“We built Lili to serve the future of the American workforce, which are freelance workers and small business owners,” said Liran Zelkha, Lili’s CTO and co-founder. “Our research revealed that young people are extremely interested in freelancing and working on their own. Because of advancements in technology and products like Lili, this is the first entrepreneurial generation who can finally handle all the complexities of managing their own finances, especially taxes. We want to be a resource for this emerging market of entrepreneurs and help them understand their finances so they can be more successful.”