One of the great benefits about being a small business owner is that you may be able to deduct many business expenses that you would not be able to deduct if you were an employee. Those deductions don’t just reduce your income tax. When you take business tax deductions, you also reduce your income subject to self-employment tax.
Reducing your adjusted gross income may help lower your tax in other ways, too.
For example, a lower adjusted gross income may mean you qualify for education credits or other perks.
Check out these key small business deductions that may help you reduce your tax bill for 2015.
1. Self-employed health insurance deduction
If you have income from self-employment, and you buy your own health insurance, you may qualify to deduct your premiums as an adjustment from income.
To qualify for the self-employed health insurance deduction, you must be ineligible for health insurance benefits through an employer – your own or your spouse’s. The coverage can be for you, your spouse, and your dependents.
The deduction cannot be more than your business net income.
2. Internet and other service fees
The monthly fees you pay for Internet service really add up. So might your costs to keep your work computer running. You may also pay for subscriptions for virus and malware control, professional references, and subscription software.
Take the time to look for all Internet, subscription, and other service fees you pay that may entitle you to a deduction.
3. Phone service
If you have separate phones for business and personal use, regardless of whether they are landlines or cell phones, you can take full deductions for the lines you use for your business.
If you only have one landline phone for both business and personal use, the Internal Revenue Service does not allow you to deduct its cost. However, you can deduct any long distance charges related to your business.
If you have a second line or a cell phone that you use for business and personal calls, you can deduct a percentage of the cost of your phone service. For example, if you use your cell phone 75 percent for business and 25 percent for personal calls, you can deduct 25 percent of the your phone bill.
You may want to request an itemized phone bill to help prove the business usage of your phone.
4. First-year depreciation of business assets (Section 179)
A special provision in the federal tax code allows you to deduct the full amount you invest in business assets in the year you purchase them, rather than spreading out the deductions over a period of years. This Section 179 expensing simplifies record keeping and helps you get the tax benefit of your investment sooner.
For 2015, the limit on Section 179 stands at $25,000 per year. However, the limit for 2014 was $500,000, and it is widely expected that Congress will raise the limit to that level again for 2015.
5. Continued depreciation on business assets
If you purchased business equipment and other business assets in previous years but did not fully expense them in the year you purchased them, make sure you get the deduction for this year’s depreciation for each asset.
6. Professional dues and subscriptions
Professional dues and subscriptions add up, and they’re easy to miss as a deduction if you pay them automatically every year. Deduct the cost of trade journals, magazine subscriptions related to your work, and dues to maintain your professional license, for example.
Unfortunately, you can’t deduct dues to clubs the IRS considers to have more of a social or recreational aspect, such as dues to business, social, athletic, luncheon, sporting, airline, and hotel clubs.
7. Cost of goods sold
If you sell products you make or buy in your business, the cost of those products can be a major portion of your total business expenses. It’s important to calculate the deductible amount of your cost of goods sold each year.
You can’t generally deduct the cost of the inventory until you actually sell it, even if you are on the cash basis. Instead, you report your beginning inventory, purchases, other expenses that are added to cost of goods sold, and ending inventory. From this information, TaxACT calculates your deductible cost of goods sold on your business return.
Materials and supplies you use to make products, whether or not they become part of the products, should be included in cost of goods sold. An expense should be included in inventory if it is used in the manufacture or mining of the goods you sell. For example, manufacturing labor is included in the cost of goods sold. Selling and administrative labor costs are not.
8. Bad debts
If someone owes you a debt that comes from operating your business, you may be able to take a deduction on your business return.
If you use the accrual method in your business, you may have bad debts when customers buy things on account and then don’t pay you. If you use the cash method, however, as many small businesses do, you cannot generally take a bad debt deduction for uncollectible customer accounts. That’s because you did not count the customer’s purchase as income when they made the purchase.
If you make loans in the course of your business to suppliers, clients, employees, and so on, you can take a business deduction for the bad debts when these loans become uncollectible.
9. Vehicle expense
If you use your vehicle for business, your vehicle expenses can provide a valuable deduction. Every time you go to the office supply or other store for business, meet with a client, or drive for other company business, track your business miles so you get the tax deductions you deserve.
You can usually choose one of two ways to calculate your vehicle expenses. You can take the standard mileage rate, which is 57.5 cents per mile for 2015, or you can deduct your actual expenses for driving your vehicle for business.
The IRS requires you to track your business, commuting, and personal miles, and the business purpose of your miles, regardless of which method you choose. If you want to deduct actual expenses, you must also track expenses for gas, oil, service, interest on a vehicle loan, lease payments, insurance, and depreciation.
You must track actual expenses in some cases; for example if you did not use the standard mileage rate the first year you used your vehicle in business, if you claimed a section 179 deduction or special depreciation allowance on the vehicle, or if you operate five or more cars at the same time.
If you run your business from your home, you can start tracking business mileage when you leave your driveway on company business. If you have another main place of business; for example, if you operate a retail store, you can only count business mileage from your main business location. Your trips from home to the store would be commuting expenses, which are not deductible.
10. Employee benefits
Benefits you pay under qualified benefit programs to your employees are a deductible expense. For example, you can deduct your cost of qualified accident and health plans, adoption assistance, cafeteria plans, dependent care assistance, educational assistance, and group-term life insurance coverage for your employees.
11. Taxes
Many taxes you pay in the course of your business are deductible as business expenses. Some taxes are already included in business expenses you pay. For example, you pay a fuel tax for gas you use to drive your vehicle for business, and the tax is included in the price of gas. When you pay sales tax on office supplies or a delivery truck, the sales tax is included in your office expense, or in the cost of the truck.
You pay other taxes separately and can deduct them as taxes on your business return. These include state tax on gross business income, federal and state payroll taxes, personal property tax on business assets, real estate taxes on business property, and excise tax you pay to the state.
You cannot deduct federal income tax.
12. Home office deduction
If you have an area in your home that you use as your home office, or for any other business purpose, you may be able to take a deduction for a home office. You’ll have to meet certain rules.
The space you claim as your home office must be devoted to your business and nothing else, in most cases. It doesn’t have to fill a whole room, however. Say you use half your den as a home office. You can deduct expenses based on the square footage that you use exclusively for business.
There are two special cases in which you don’t have to meet the exclusive use rule: If you use your home to store inventory or product samples, or if you run a daycare facility.
When you claim a home office, you deduct indirect and direct expenses. Direct expenses are those that apply only to your home office, such as painting or repairing just your office. You claim 100 percent of direct expenses.
Indirect expenses include a percentage of the amount you pay for electricity, rent, and so on for your whole house. To find the percentage, divide the total square footage of your home by the number of square feet in your home office.
If finding all those utility bills and other receipts sounds like too much trouble, the IRS has another option you may prefer. Beginning in 2013, the IRS lets you use a simplified home office deduction. You can take a flat $5 per square foot deduction for your home office, up to a maximum of 300 square feet.
13. Retirement contributions
One benefit of having a small business is the freedom to choose a better retirement plan for your needs. This is especially true if you want a full range of investment options, and the ability to invest more per year than with traditional IRAs or most employee retirement plans.
It pays to compare plans. If you choose a deductible retirement plan, you may be able to lower this year’s taxes by contributing up to $5,500 to a traditional IRA in 2015 ($6,500 if you’re age 50 or older). But if you use a SEP IRA as a self-employed person or small business owner, for example, your business can contribute up to 25 percent of your compensation, up to a maximum total contribution of $53,000 for 2015. You have up to the extended filing deadline of October 17, 2016 to set up and contribute to a SEP IRA for 2015.
14. One-half of self-employment tax
If you’re self-employed, you pay the full Social Security and Medicare tax on your self-employment income. There’s no employer to share in the cost. To help compensate, the IRS allows you to deduct one-half of your self-employment tax as an adjustment to income on your tax return.
The post 14 Key Small Business Deductions for 2015 appeared first on TaxAct Blog.