Tax deductions

[soonermajic]

Anything I am missing, besides the standard deductions? I can also deduct mileage, because I am a coach.
Our tax guy died, & our new guy is NOT very savvy...

 

[Overachiever]

Home Office, cell phone.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Be careful with home office deductions.

 

[tdlconceptsllc]

Work shoes, work clothes, TOOLS,grounds supplies, company work truck expenses/repairs. Don’t settle for a half a** bookkeeper also especially if you buy those other washes.

 

[OurTown]

You should consider looking for a Certified Public Accountant instead of just a tax service that doesn't deal with businesses very often. We sit down with ours for hours and discuss everything before submitting our final numbers to put in certain categories. Everyone's situation is different and changes from year to year.

 

[Randy]

A good Certified Public Accountant is expensive but well worth the money. We spend a lot of time and money with our accountant every year and she’s saved us a lot over the years.

 

[Rudy]

Be sure your business is correctly structured (Subchapter S corporation or similar).

I forget the particular's, but Trumps new tax law allows my Sub S to deduct 20% right off of the TOP of my corporate income. 20%. That's huge.

That little jewel will make deducting your cell phone bill seem like peanuts......

 

[Earl Weiss]

I would hope you are using an accounting program. Every check is entered as some sort of expense by category. Printing out a P&L will give you all expenses. I don't know if you write 100 checks a year. But if it is about that number printing the register will give the accountant detail. If it comes in it's income, and if it goes out it's an expense. (With some exceptions perhaps).

 

[Greg Pack]

car wash building are specialized structures that can be depreciated over 15 years

 

[Rudy]

Yup.....and that's why I started doing my own taxes.

When I first built my wash, a CPA depreciated my building over 31.5 years.

"Uh, gee I thought that it was 15 years for a car wash building..."

"I'll have to check on that".....to which he later said, "Gee, I guess your right".

And....why am I paying you over $100 an hour to not get it right?????

Now, I do my own tax work.....fill out the returns (using software), and pay a CPA $125/hour to "review" my work (different CPA). Usually, I'm in there less than an hour....and he often finds little things that I overlooked, or didn't file correctly.

I'm more confident than ever....that it's done right.

 

[soonermajic]

more good advice from this thread & members...