Tax law grants relief, if you want to call it that, when you lose your tax records through no fault of your own. For example, say a flood, theft, hurricane, or earthquake caused the loss of your tax records. Your relief is the right to substantiate your deductions using a reasonable reconstruction of those records. Yikes, how long will that take?

When you operate your business as an S corporation or a C corporation, you first need to remember that the corporation is a separate legal entity. If you incur travel expenses on behalf of the corporation, those are corporate expenses. You either need an agreement saying you can deduct the expenses personally or that you will submit the expenses for reimbursement. One of these two choices is really bad.

If you drive 36 miles to your parents’ home but spend time that day doing business research in the library around the corner from your parents’ home, are those 36 miles business or personal miles? They could be business miles. You need two types of proof: (1) library proof and (2) vehicle proof. How would you prove that you used the library? How would you prove that you drove the miles?

Let’s say you operate your business as an S corporation but use a personal car for corporate business. To create the proper tax deductions, the right way to handle this situation is for the S corporation to reimburse you using one of two tax law-approved methods.

The entertainment facility rules are designed to destroy your entertainment facility deductions. But the law contains a number of exceptions. In Part 4 of this series, you learn how to use the business meeting and overnight lodging rules to make your vacation home a tax-deductible business asset.

Find out how giving stock in your S corporation rather than the same dollar amount in cash can save you over $6,000. Until recently, this income-splitting strategy worked only when giving to adults, but because of the recent Obamacare tax, you now get a benefit when you shift money to your children.

Learn how today’s restaurant and other receipts printed on thermal paper can create big trouble for your tax deductions. Over time, the images on thermal paper can totally disappear. And of those that have not yet totally disappeared, you have many that you can’t read. This means you need to create a plan that includes scanning or photocopying thermal receipts.