If you are a regular reader of the Tax Reduction Letter, you know that you can use a Section 125 plan to save money on group health insurance. A number of subscribers have requested a template for how to set up one of these plans, and that’s what this article is all about—we’ll help you get your plan up and running.

The IRS lifted its long-standing ban against deductions for local lodging expenses. Now you can deduct the cost of a hotel for yourself or your employees even if you’re staying near your home. But there are three rules to know to make sure that your expense falls within the IRS “safe harbor” for deductibility.

The IRS is more than happy to take away your deductions for your vehicle’s operating expenses if you do not follow their perfectionistic standard of record keeping. But you can beat them at their own game. This article shows you the easy way to satisfy even the most demanding of IRS agents when it comes to proving the usage of your business vehicle.

You enter a muddy legal area when you claim a home-office deduction in connection with your rental properties. Why? You must prove that you operate the rental properties as a trade or business. This article shows you the best way to meet that “trade or business” test and safeguard your deductions (and escape self-employment tax in the process).

There are special rules that you need to know regarding the deduction of your net losses if you co-own or co-manage a business or investment with your spouse. Tax law gives you some nice advantages, but they’re not what we would call logical. If you don’t know how the rules work, you might be missing out on money-saving benefits.

Your traditional IRA comes with a looming tax bill. Sure, you deduct your contributions, but you have to pay tax on 100 percent of the money you eventually withdraw. Fortunately, the tax code gives you a great year-end planning technique that you can use to minimize this future tax. You can strategically roll your traditional IRAs forward (and backward) to Roth IRAs, which allow you to withdraw qualified distributions tax-free.

If you own stock, you can take action now to escape the tax that you will incur when you ultimately decide to sell. By strategically timing sale and repurchase transactions, you can take advantage of the zero percent bracket for capital gains and gradually eliminate most or all of your tax before you ultimately dispose of the stock.