Tax Tips
Is My Trip a Deductible Business Expense?
To help you understand business travel, consider this: You planned a personal trip to Los Angeles, arriving on Friday afternoon and leaving on Sunday afternoon. About a week later, you learn that a vendor you need to meet with is going to be in L.A. when you are. You...
Proving Travel Expenses after Tax Reform
As you likely know by now, your travel meals continue under tax reform as tax-deductible meals subject to the 50 percent cut. And tax reform did not change the rules that apply to your other travel expense deductions. One beauty of being in business for yourself is...
How to Deduct Assisted Living and Nursing Home Bills
Watch your wallet: the median cost in 2018 for an assisted living facility was $48,000 and over $100,000 for nursing home care. If you could deduct these expenses, you’d substantially reduce your income tax liability—possibly down to $0—and dramatically reduce your...
Will the Newly Released Section 199A Rental Safe Harbor Work for You?
Nothing stays the same in the tax world, and that’s especially true with your brand-new 20 percent Section 199A tax deduction. In January, an IRS Notice gave you a Section 199A safe-harbor option for your rental properties, possibly making it easier for you to qualify...
2019 Last-Minute Year-End General Business Income Tax Deductions
The goal of this strategy is to get the IRS to owe you money. Of course, the IRS is not likely to cut you a check for this money (although in the right circumstances, that will happen), but you’ll realize the cash when you pay less in taxes. Here are five powerful...
2019 Last-Minute Year-End Medical and Retirement Deductions
When you get busy with your business, it’s easy to forget about your retirement accounts and medical coverages and plans. But year-end is approaching, and now’s the time to take action. Here are the six strategies that you can implement before the end of the year....
2019 Last-Minute Section 199A Strategies That Reduce Taxes
Remember to consider your Section 199A deduction in your year-end tax planning. If you don’t, you could end up with a big fat $0 for your deduction amount. We’ll review four year-end moves that (a) reduce your income taxes and (b) boost your Section 199A deduction at...
2019 Last-Minute Year-End Tax Strategies for Your Stock Portfolio
When you take advantage of the tax code’s offset game, your stock market portfolio can represent a little gold mine of opportunities to reduce your 2019 income taxes. The tax code contains the basic rules for this game, and once you know the rules, you can apply the...
Make the RMD from Your Traditional IRA Tax-Free
Once you turn age 70 1/2, the tax code mandates that you withdraw a tax code–defined required minimum distribution (RMD) from your traditional IRA. But by using the RMD or other IRA distribution with a qualified charitable distribution (QCD), you can eliminate the RMD...
Tax Reform Allows Bigger, Faster Business Car 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...
New Reasons for Accountable Plan Reimbursements
Failure to use an accountable plan for your employee expense reimbursements (including yourself if you operate as a corporation) turns those improperly reimbursed expenses into taxable wages. In other words, by failing to comply with the accountable plan rules, you...
Personal Use of Your Rental Triggers Ugly Vacation Home Rules
You must consider the vacation home rules when you rent a bedroom in your home and also use it personally, or rent your beach home (or any other home you own) and also use it personally. Personal Use of the Dwelling Rent or use by relatives. Personal use...
Blueprint for Employee-Spouse 105-HRA (Health Reimbursement Arrangement)
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) does not apply to a business that has only one employee. This opens the door (likely regardless of what lawmakers do with the ACA) for what we are going to call the 105-HRA. We created this name from its two predecessors: 1. The Section...
How Corporations Reduce IRS Audits of Home-Office Deductions
You have probably read that the home-office deduction increases your chances of IRS audit. We’ve read that, too, but we don’t believe it. Regardless, there are a few things you can do to make your home office less likely to ever appear in an audit. If you filed your...
Year-End Tax Deductions for Existing Vehicles
It’s time to examine your existing cars, SUVs, trucks, and vans for some profitable year-end business tax deductions. Your first step is to identify your gain or loss on sale. Once you have the gain or loss, know these basic rules: • Gains attributable to depreciation...
Beware: Conflicting IRS Rules for Deducting Your Business Gym—Don’t Use the Wrong Ones
I know that you have been thinking about employee fitness and the possibility of a gym or other athletic facility. 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,...
Check Your Beneficiary Designations Now, Before Disaster Strikes
With the current super-generous federal estate tax exemption of $11.4 million, estate planning may be completely off your radar. After all, with that huge exemption, you may think there’s no way your estate would owe any federal estate tax if you happen to...
Roth IRA versus Traditional IRA: Which is Better for You?
Roth IRAs tend to get a lot of hype, and for good reason: because you pay the taxes upfront, your eventual withdrawals (assuming you meet the age and holding-period requirements—more on these below) are completely tax-free. While we like “tax-free” as much as the next...
Business Meal Tax Deductions After the Tax Reform
Here’s good news for business meals: the Tax Reform removed the “directly related and associated with” requirements from business meals. The net effect of this change is to subject business meals once again to the pre-1963 “ordinary and necessary” business expense...
Impact of Death, Retirement, and Disability on the 179 Deduction
What tax effect would death, retirement, or disability have on you or your business? Here’s an easy example to illustrate. Let’s say that in 2017, you purchased for business use a pickup truck with a gross vehicle weight rating greater than 6,000 pounds. Asserting...