By month: October 2017

Find New Deductions with Two-Car Tax Strategies

If you have two or more vehicles in your family, you might find added tax deductions by driving more than one vehicle for business. To know if you benefit or not, you need to put your numbers into our magic two-car formula. This is very easy to do, and the formula result tells you for sure whether you come out ahead or not.

Q&A: Administrative Home Office Is a Principal Office

The special rule that applies to administrative or management use of the home office creates a principal office. There are only two ways to create a principal office in your home. The administrative or management office works when you have two offices: (1) an office in the home and (b) an office outside the home.

A Tax Break for American Builders—Including You (Yes, You)

You may not think of yourself as a manufacturer, but you might nevertheless qualify as one under tax law. There is a deduction for manufacturing that applies to a much broader array of activities than most people realize. There’s no catch and no recapture associated with this deduction—it’s just extra cash for your wallet. Find out if you qualify.

Q&A: Find Some Tax Sanity by Using the Gambling Per Session Rule

Tax law does not like you if you are a casual gambler. If you are a casual gambler, you report your winnings above the line, where those winnings can increase your taxes, cause loss of deductions because of phaseouts, and increase your Medicare premiums. Your losses are itemized deductions that appear below the line, where you benefit only if you itemize. There’s no choice about where you report your winnings and losses, but there’s a way you can use the per-session rule to mitigate the damage this reporting causes.

Update on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)

Health savings accounts (HSAs) have gained substantially in popularity since enactment of the Affordable Care Act. Tax-wise, the HSA has some great features such as tax-deductible contributions, tax-deferred (even tax-free if used correctly) growth, and possible retirement benefits.

Easily Fixing Depreciation Errors Can Save Thousands in Taxes

Depreciation is a valuable tax deduction but is often missed or mistakenly computed. If you missed depreciation or did it incorrectly, you can fix it in the current year and get some possible major tax benefits for doing so. In fact, the need for a correction can create planning opportunities for you.

Shedding Doubts about Selling Your Home to Your S Corporation

If you want to convert your home to a rental property, don’t. Instead, sell your home to your S corporation and then have the S corporation make the property a rental property. We have written about this previously, and we received some questions that we address in this article.

Q&A: Tax Deductions for Nine Months of Out-of-Town Travel

How does the tax code define a temporary assignment that qualifies you for tax deductions during a full period of stay, such as nine full months? In this article, you learn how federal per diem rates interact with some actual expenses and what you need in place to achieve deductions for a temporary out-of-town work assignment.

Two-Car Tax-Deduction Strategy Approved by the IRS and the Courts

When the two-vehicle tax-deduction strategy works for you, you find new deductions without spending a penny or driving a mile farther. In this article, you find that both the IRS and the courts approve of your use of two or more vehicles for business.

 

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