What business expenses do YOU Deduct?

[Majestic]

Hi,

Well as I'm doing my taxes now I realized I'm always asking the same question: What CAN I deduct against taxes I have to pay to the government for my business? The goal being of course to pay little to no taxes legitimately.

I'm going to list what -I- actually deduct and I would LOVE to hear from other people and what they use. Perhaps we can all be a bit creative, or will realize all this time items we have missed and unfortunately paid taxes needlessly.

Here is my list from the top of my head:

Gasoline for the car (the portion used for business)
Rent
Electricity
Lease on the car
Car Insurance
Car Maintenance
Telephone
Cell Phone
Internet
Postage Stamps and all materials for Shipping (Boxes, etc..)
Parking charges when seeing clients in commercial areas

Computer equipment used for the purpose of business such as:

Usb key (32 gb)
new printer
new hard drive
Speakers for the computer (grey area? not sure)
new Computer Monitor


Advertising
Business Cards
Business magnets
Networking Receipts (Card Exchange networking meetings)
Ink for the Printer
Restaurant (eating expenses, here we are allowed 55% up to a total of $17/day)


I think that's all I can come up with off-hand.

I would love to hear everybody elses.

Regards,

Majestic

 

[Appleby]

I use Quicken Home and Business and I should probably switch to Quickbooks, but I'm pretty happy at this point. I automatically download every expense from my business credit card and checking acct. into Quicken, I categorize every transaction and I create all my invoices in Quicken and categorize every line item of income on the invoice. I print out my expense and income report, hand it to my accountant in February and tell him to call me with a total. An accountant is SO worth is for a business owner.

I wish I could answer your question better, but I don't have a clue how the tax laws work in Canada vs. the US. You mentioned writing off gasoline and here, we don't normally do that on a privately owned vehicle, we add up our mileage and are allowed a certain deduction for every mile we drove.

I would suggest you start using Quickbooks, Quicken Home & Business or the like. Every expense will be inputted with a category you select. Then at the end of the year it's so simple. Also, you should be paying for every business expense with a separate checking account and/or credit card. Therefore at the end of the year, you don't have to guess what is a business expense, it's everything you paid for from your business accounts.

 

[colonydata]

according to my accountant it is better to reimburse yourself the irs millage rate for use of your car than to reimburse yourself from company accounts based on gas.

 

[Majestic]

I use Quicken Home and Business and I should probably switch to Quickbooks, but I'm pretty happy at this point. I automatically download every expense from my business credit card and checking acct. into Quicken, I categorize every transaction and I create all my invoices in Quicken and categorize every line item of income on the invoice. I print out my expense and income report, hand it to my accountant in February and tell him to call me with a total. An accountant is SO worth is for a business owner.

I wish I could answer your question better, but I don't have a clue how the tax laws work in Canada vs. the US. You mentioned writing off gasoline and here, we don't normally do that on a privately owned vehicle, we add up our mileage and are allowed a certain deduction for every mile we drove.

I would suggest you start using Quickbooks, Quicken Home & Business or the like. Every expense will be inputted with a category you select. Then at the end of the year it's so simple. Also, you should be paying for every business expense with a separate checking account and/or credit card. Therefore at the end of the year, you don't have to guess what is a business expense, it's everything you paid for from your business accounts.

It's funny you mention that. I JUST switched to Quickbooks 2007 for 2011. The write-off methods are extremely close between Canada and the US. You do have a choice for your car between mileage and the actual gas you pay I have to look into which is the most advantangeous.

The vehicle I own IS privately owned but used for business 85% of the time and that is exactly the portion which I deduct in respect to gasoline and everything else on it (of course there are certain limitations.)

It sounds like you're quite organized. I'm looking forward to using Quickbooks in this new year and see how well it works for me.

Thanks

Majestic