Are you owing taxes every year or are you letting your money work for you? If you don’t own a business you might be leaving money on the table. Aside from the rewards of making your own schedule and dictating your own income, the government allows you to deduct the expenses in operating your business from what you may owe in taxes; and there are many that most people aren’t even aware of. Here are some of the top 1099 tax deductions.
Vehicle
Most people are aware of the mileage deduction; but, did you know that you can also take deductions on car washes, repairs and larger maintenance items (tires, etc), property tax, and car insurance? This can give you hundreds of dollars more in deductible expenses each year.
Travel
We say you can’t afford to miss a company convention. Here’s another reason. You can deduct your airfare, hotel, travel incidentals (those little travel size toiletries), parking, tolls, baggage fees, vehicle rentals, taxi and rideshare expenses; not just for airplane trips but for car trips as well.
Office
This can be an area where people miss valuable items to benefit from. The more common deductions people are aware of are office supplies: ink, paper, folders to organize your business, staples, pens, and clips. Did you purchase new office furniture? A new laptop or a new phone with the necessary features to run your company’s marketing and back office? You can also take packaging and postage for sending out samples and flyers. You may have paid for professional services like a website and all the fees entailed (domain, hosting, SSL, SEO) or paid a consultant, accountant or lawyer to help you with something for your business.
Now here is where the hidden deductions lie – the home office. Part of the magic of taking the square footage of your home office is that you get to deduct a percentage of the household bills as well: utilities like electricity, water, natural gas, lawn maintenance, and pest control; mortgage interest, rent, property tax; even household repairs. With the modernization of business and doing everything through mobile devices and internet you could get a pretty large deduction for your internet and phone service to the amount that you use it for your business or the necessity for a better service plan to support your business.
Advertising
This one is fairly straightforward, or is it? We all use and purchase marketing materials like flyers, insert cards, handouts, and product samples. If you purchase internet leads they would go here as well as promotions and incentives (like purchasing a membership or product for a prospect to try out), team contests, awards and trophies.
Personal
In your business you need to make presentations. In order to do that you should look the part. Don’t forget to keep those receipts for the salon (hair and nails) and the business attire including shoes for presentations and meetings. If you’re buying a gown or suit for the big awards night at your company convention, you can get credit for that.
These sound like a lot to keep track of and easy to lose. I suggest you keep some envelopes and as you go through the year put your receipts into envelopes by category or by month so that you can refer to them when you do your taxes.
Doing taxes each year can be stressful and complicated; but when you have your own business at least you have something to look forward to in reduced tax burden (maybe even a refund) just for taking the initiative to be your own boss. There are more details to all the tax benefits that you can use but I wanted to highlight some of the primary ones that have really helped us save money and make the most of our business. Make sure you visit my training You’re Missing Out If You Don’t Have a 1099! for more insights on the benefits of owning your business.
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