When the end of the year rolls around, it’s time to start looking at your inventory—including your current vehicles. If any of your cars, vans, trucks, or SUVs could be claimed for a tax deduction, now is the time to find out! Here’s what you need to know about how to do this. As a…
Deductions
Section 199A Deduction Strategies to Keep in Mind
Is it time to start thinking about your Section 199A deduction? If the end of the year is approaching, the answer is yes—that’s the best way to ensure that you’re able to claim a deduction at all! If you have income that is $157,000 or more, then it’s possible to reduce or even eliminate your…
What You Need to Know About Medical and Retirement Deductions
As the end of the year gets closer, it’s time to start seriously thinking about your taxes—and that means it’s also time to think about your medical plan and your retirement account. A little preparation now can pay off in the long run! Here are some important steps you can take that will help you…
Planning Your General Business Deductions for the End of the Year
The end of the year means it’s time to make sure that your financial affairs are in good order—and that means planning your general business deductions. Fortunately, this is easier than you might imagine! Here are some smart strategies that will help you reduce your tax obligation. Pay next year’s expenses in advance. If you…
Convert Your Personal Vehicle to Business and Deduct up to 100 Percent
You probably like your personal vehicle just as it is. But wouldn’t you like it far better if it were producing tax deductions? Perhaps big deductions, immediately. And the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act gives you the tax reform road map on how to do this. Of course, to make this happen, you need to…
TCJA Changes to Your Tax-Free Supper Money
Here’s how the TCJA applied its tax reform to your supper money meal allowances. Before tax reform, you deducted 100 percent of the supper money cost. Now, because of tax reform, your tax deduction for supper money is subject to a 50 percent cut for amounts paid during tax years 2018 through 2025. The regulations…
Will Renting Your Home Destroy Your $250,000 Exclusion?
The days when you could convert your rental property or vacation home to a principal residence and then use the full $250,000/$500,000 home-sale exclusion to avoid taxes are gone. Here’s how the $250,000/$500,000 exclusion works today. You must divide your period of home ownership into two categories—qualified and nonqualified use: Qualified use means the time…
How the 90-Day Mileage Log Rule Works for You
Often in an IRS audit, the examiner will ask for your mileage log at the beginning of the audit. If you do not have a mileage log, then you are in danger of losing more than just vehicle deductions. Think about it. If you don’t have a log for mileage, what is the IRS examiner…
Reduce Your Taxes by Making Your Spouse a Business Partner
Tax reform changed the rules of the game when choosing your best tax structure. In looking over the possibilities, a properly structured spousal partnership could be your best choice. Here are the tax benefits to you: Your spouse’s income is free from self-employment tax. You and your spouse both still qualify for the new pass-through…
Tax Reform Expands Your Section 179 Deduction Privilege
The new and improved Section 179 deduction gives you more ways to take advantage of immediate tax deductions. It’s somewhat like having a flexible tax shelter in your back pocket for when you need it (and also need the property, of course). As in years past, the Section 179 deduction is available for both new…
Tax Reform Destroyed State and Local Tax Deductions—Fight Back
Tax reform put the screws to your state and local income tax deductions, capping them at $10,000. Many states disliked that and have been putting together workarounds. But now the IRS is creating regulations to put the kibosh on your state’s creative plans. Unless federal lawmakers change their minds, your federal deductions for state income…
Tax Planning for Snowbirds
You can plan your tax-deductible business life to avoid cold winters and hot summers. Spend a moment examining the following four short paragraphs that contain the basic facts from the Andrews case. For six months of the year, from May through October, Edward Andrews lived in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, where he owned and operated Andrews Gunite…
IRS Rules for Deducting Your Business Gym
If you have been thinking about the fitness of your employees and the possibility of a gym or other athletic facility, then you need to know the tax rules. To be tax deductible, your gym or other athletic facility must be primarily for the benefit of your employees—other than employees who are officers, shareholders, or…
Tax Reform: Planning for Your New 20 Percent Deduction
As you likely know by now, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act created a 20 percent tax deduction under new tax code Section 199A. The question for you: Will you reap any benefits from this new deduction? And the second question: If your chance of qualifying for the 20 percent tax deduction looks bleak, what…
Avoid Being an IRS Target When Your Business Loses Money
If you operate what you think is a business, but that business loses money, it may not be a business at all under the tax code. Such a money-losing activity can look like a tax shelter to the IRS, and that substantially increases your chances of an IRS audit. The tax code contains a business…
Tax Reform Update on Business Meals with Clients and Prospects
Note that in our previous announcements, we let you know that business meals with clients and prospects were no longer deductible based on the recent tax reform changes. But we now know that lawmakers plan to reinstate business meals with clients and prospects as 50% deductible. Here’s the updated strategy: deduct your client and business…
Tax Reform Makes Professional Gamblers Who Lose Money Suffer More
As a professional gambler, you know that tax law did you no favors before tax reform. But now, because of tax reform, tax law has you between a rock and a hard place for tax years 2018 through 2025, because during this eight-year period of darkness, you get no deduction for any part of your…
Does Tax Reform Dislike Your Reputation or Skill?
Here’s a troubling thought. Did lawmakers put you in the out-of-favor tax group that denies you the 20 percent Section 199A deduction because your business makes too much money, and does so thanks to the reputation or skill of one or more of the business’s owners or employees?
Tax Reform Creates Desire for the C Corporation
When you first see that 21 percent tax rate for the C corporation, you have to think that this could be the choice of entity for your business operation. Further, when you find yourself in the out-of-favor group for the 20 percent deduction authorized by new tax code Section 199A, you naturally gravitate to thinking…
Tax Reform Allows Bigger Vehicle Deductions
Finally, lawmakers did the right thing by increasing the luxury auto depreciation limits on business cars. The old luxury limits were unrealistic, punitive, unfair, and discriminatory against any car that cost more than $15,800. The new limits don’t create parity in all respects, but they are a big improvement.