Top 5 Tax Deductions for Small Businesses and Professionals
Top 5 Tax Deductions for Small Businesses and Professionals
As a Business Owner and Professional your normal week may look like this.Meeting clients, preparing weekly payroll, checking inventory, paying suppliers, meeting with the banker for Line of Credit, working on the marketing plan and advertising, hiring and supervising employees and thousands of other tasks.
As difficult as it is to keep pace with all the business and professional challenges, you may be facing the economic slow down and revenue challenges in the business. One way to handle economic slow down is to reduce your expenses and position your business or profession to gain market share through smart marketing. However, most small business owners and professionals overlook their Biggest Expense in the Year Taxes.
Small Businesses and Individual Professionals can Reduce their Taxes
Taxes are the biggest expense for most Small Businesses and Individual Professionals. And yet most of us provide minimal time for planning and reducing this expense, except perhaps an annual visit to the accountant's office during taxes! Is it any surprise then that Small Businesses and Professionals contribute the most to Tax Revenues?
There are over 350 Tax Deductions and Credits for Small Businesses and Individual Professionals. K&M Accounting and Tax Services of Charlotte Small Business Accounting and Tax helps identify all tax deductions. Although it is almost impossible to say how many of these may be applicable to your specific business without considering your particular scenario, here are some Deductions that may apply to most Small Businesses and Professionals.
Top 5 Tax Deductions for Small Businesses and Professionals
1. Start-up Expenses
As you get your business started, there are several costs such as furniture, equipment, Computer, Fax etc that may be deducted 100%. Section 179 of the Internal Revenue Code allows you to deduct up to $250,000 of the cost of new equipment or other assets in 2009. Off the shelf Software costs can also be now deducted in the same year as per Section 179.
Although if you know that your business is going to take a couple of years to break even and generate profit, you may want to depreciate these expenses over the years to offset the profits in later years.
2. Business Travel, Meals and Entertainment
If you make a trip for business purposes, travel costs including Airline ticket, Hotel, Taxi, Meals, Shipping business materials, Laundry, Telephone calls, etc are fully deductible expenses.
How about combining business travel with pleasure? It is allowed, as long as the primary purpose of the trip is for Business, although there are strict guidelines on this.
3. Charitable Contributions
This is a great deduction as you can feel good about donating to your favorite cause and save on Taxes at the same time. Charitable contributions are treated slightly different depending on the type of your business entity. If your business is a partnership, a limited liability company, or an S corporation, your business can make a charitable contribution and pass the deduction through to you, to claim on your individual tax return. In case of regular (C) corporations charitable contributions are deducted on the corporation's tax return. There are some important rules for charitable contribution deductions:
- Only contributions to charities listed as qualified organizations' by the IRS are deductible and contributions more than $250 require a written acknowledgement from the qualified charitable organization.
- You can deduct donations of assets such as Property or Equipment at their fair market value. Although a fully depreciated (written off) asset cannot be deducted as a contribution even if it is works well.
- You cannot deduct the value of time or services that you volunteer.
- You cannot deduct the part of a contribution that benefits you. If you receive a gift in exchange for a charitable donation or if the contribution made is in lieu of certain benefits, you can deduct only the amount of the contribution that exceeds the value of the gift. If you are making a large donation, make sure you check with your tax accountant first.
4. Bad Debts
Bad Debts hurt the most. Especially when you have worked so hard to satisfy all of the customer's requirements and they do not pay you. The good news is that certain bad debts are tax deductible.
If your business sells goods, you can deduct the costs of any goods sold, but not paid for, as an ordinary business expense. However, you cannot deduct any lost profits you would have collected from the sale. If your business provides services, no deduction is allowed for the time you devoted to the customer who doesn't pay. For example if you provide medical services and the patient does not pay, you cannot deduct the cost of the time you spent in treating the patient. The rationale is that if businesses were able to deduct unpaid services, it would be quiet easy to inflate the unpaid bills and claim large bad debt deductions making it hard for IRS to catch the fraud.
5. Home Office Deduction
For several years taking a Home Office Tax Deduction was considered a red flag, inviting the IRS to Audit your tax return. But that may no longer be the case, with more and more businesses and individuals taking advantage of working from home and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. IRS is well aware of the rising trend in working from home office. As long as you use the Home Office' as IRS defines it. This one deduction alone can save you several thousand dollars in tax.
For example if you are an independent Information Technology contractor and mostly work out of your client's office, however you use part of your home to manage the administrative aspects of your profession or business, you may qualify to take the Home Office deduction. IRS has specific rules to qualify to deduct expenses for home office. I want to share the two most basic qualifiers.
Trade or Business Use: First of all you must be engaged in a trade or business to take advantage of this deduction. Employees can also take Home Office Deduction in certain situations. We will cover more on individual deductions next month. You cannot take a deduction if you are only using it for a profit seeking activity that is not your trade or business. For Example you use part of your home to review investment journals and carry out your personal investments. You are not a broker or a dealer, so your activities may not be considered part of a trade or business and hence you cannot take home office deduction.
Regular and Exclusive Use: Specific area of your home must be used exclusively and regularly for your business or trade. You don't need a permanent partition to mark the space. For example you use part of your basement exclusively to perform administrative and management tasks of your business, review business paperwork, teleconference or meet with clients etc on a regular basis and not just once in a while. Your family does not use the same space for recreation or other non-business purposes. You may be able to claim costs associated with part of the basement as a deduction for use as home office, provided you qualify on other rules.
There are other rules and definitions that IRS uses to qualify the Home Office deductions. If you are planning to take advantage of this deduction, I strongly recommend you take help from an expert tax accountant. The money you will save on the taxes will be well worth the professional fees.
Keep in mind this column and the articles published here are only meant to provide you with high level information about taxes and in no way should you consider this as tax advice. Hopefully I have got you started thinking about saving more of your hard earned money and paying less to the IRS as you brave through the economic head winds in a recession. Consult your Tax Advisor regarding your individual situation.
This Article provides only an overview to the complex Tax Laws. It is not exhaustive nor a substitute for Independent Tax Advice provided by a Tax Accountant or a Tax Attorney familiar with your case.
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