14 Tax Deductions Your Small Business May Be Ignoring

Although there are other advantages, making money is one of the main reasons you’re in business. Furthermore, it seems sensible that if you own a firm, you’d want to keep as much of the revenue as you can. That may be the reason why so many people detest paying taxes.

But if you keep your books properly, you’ll discover that there are methods to keep some of the value your company creates. You only want to contribute your fair part. And preserve the remainder. So, this way you can run a prosperous small business or expand it to become something greater.

Above all, keep in mind that you pay taxes on your profit, which is calculated as your income minus your normal expenses and reported to the IRS on Schedule C each year. Therefore, you should be sure you’ve tracked every single business spend before you sit down to complete your taxes or give your information to your tax accountant.

Everything you purchase has an immediate impact on and is utilized by your organization. If you work in construction, it’s the price of your tools and supplies. It has to do with the software you use if you develop websites. The obvious ones—advertising, office costs, licensing, utilities, and more—can be seen on Schedule C.

When defining some costs, you need to be careful. Especially if you operate your business from home. The area of your home that you use entirely and frequently for business can indeed be written off. But it’s not just for your job if you work from home during the week and watch football there on Sunday. Once-a-month office use is not regarded as regular use if all you do there is your month-end bookkeeping.

Possible Tax Deductions You’re Overlooking

Even though Schedule C lists 21 different categories of costs, you may still overlook some legitimate ones. For illustration:

Home Office Renovations or Repairs

Examples of such costs include painting, new carpeting, and brighter lighting. It would also be to hire a cleaning service for your office. The desk and filing cabinets you use, as well as the wall repair after your desk chair was damaged, would all be deductible expenses.

Education

You can deduct any training or education that is directly linked to your line of work. To keep their licenses current, many professionals need to take professional development courses. Others enroll in courses to learn how to grow their companies. It is deductible if it is pertinent.

Local travel

The parking cost you pay when you visit a client and park across the street is tax deductible. The cost of the toll bridge you use to cross the river and get to your client’s office is deducted from

Your Small Business Web Page

To locate and engage with potential and current consumers, a website is a necessity. All associated expenses, such as paying the person who makes it for you, hosting the website, maintaining its security, purchasing the images and material you post on it, etc., may be deducted. All of this is a part of advertising, which is more than just paying to have a short advertisement shown on your neighborhood radio or television station.

Startup Expenses for Small Business

The legal and professional fees you pay to complete and file your documentation are tax deductible if this is your first year. The first five thousand dollars in additional fees may be amortized over the following fifteen years.

Finance Charges

As long as you have an arms-length transaction, any loan you take out for business purposes is tax deductible. Keep note of your interest costs so you may write them off when filing your taxes. The interest on your company credit card is also tax deductible.

Investing in Retirement as a Self-Employed Business Owner

These include Keogh or HR-10 plans, solo 401(k) plans, and self-employed simplified employee pension (SEP) plans.

Benefits for Your Staff

Is coffee available at work? That bowl of chocolates by the front desk? While taking the staff out for lunch is only 50% deductible, lunch delivered into the workplace is deductible.

Membership in Clubs and Organizations

The club or organization must be connected to a business or the community, like a chamber of commerce, trade association, or professional group.

Childcare for Small Business

If you’re a parent who works from home but must travel to see a client, you can deduct the cost of childcare. It’s not if you’re leaving the house to go shopping.

To Sum Up

Keep in mind that you cannot subtract anything that you are not keeping track of. Before the 1980s, the only options for keeping records were paper, pencils, and filing cabinets. Spreadsheets became an option in the late 20th century. Which required formulas to be entered into the proper cells and to remember where the relevant backup paperwork was maintained.

Even better information monitoring techniques have emerged in the current period, combining years of accounting and bookkeeping expertise into a user-friendly software platform. As a backup to your accounting records, you may now keep track of all the purchase orders, invoices, and receipts you’ll require. Moreover, keep them all secure on a cloud-based platform. From a computer or a mobile device, files, photos, emails, and scanned paper documents can be recorded and securely stored online. All transactions can simply be categorized for later reporting and filing by account category and the applicable tax schedule.

These systems are accessible from any location where your business takes you, including your home office, the factory floor, and business pitches conducted outside of your state. You can raise them if necessary (such as for a loan application, a meeting with your accountant, or deciding on financing a business improvement).

Contact Your Part Time Accountant, and let our professionals help you every step of the way.