Last summer, even though my love life was a dumpster fire, my career caught fire in a good way.

I had finally secured both the funding and the space to launch my own boutique salon, and I could not have been more delighted to be my own boss after so many years working in the trenches for others.

However, there is one element to running your own business that made me shrivel in terror — taxes! Don’t laugh, but for those first few months — even though I had all the top do-it-yourself software — I lived in constant fear that I was screwing something up and that the IRS would be sitting on my porch one morning.

“For god’s sake, Gemma — just get an accountant,” my dear friend Stan told me at brunch. “Michael knows this guy who deals with small businesses... Read More