Hello,

Got a quick question. Are expenses incurred by a small business startup compound on a personal standard deduction? My scenario is below:

-I’m employed (not self-employment, at an actual company) and rent an apartment
-Say I incur ,000 in small business expense this year for a SIDE business.

Is this ,000 write off in conjunction with the standard deduction (of around 5k for single)? So, in other words, can my income be claimed to be 15k lower? If my startup costs incur ,000 is there a reason for me to NOT do the standard deduction? It seems awfully stupid that standard deductions exist, as I would’ve kept my own money instead of spending it on all this crap…

A good friend of mine owns a Jani-King cleaning franchise and my wife has been employed by him for a couple of years. Starting last year my wife started doing it full-time. I have a couple of questions…

1. We have received about ,000.00 in income during 2007 and have not paid any taxes on that income. What kind of percentage of that income can we expect to pay?

2. Her boss provides all of the supplies, however we use one of our personal vehicle to go from job site to job site. I know she drives approximately 250 miles each week. Can we deduct the mileage as business expense as long as we know what the daily amount is (we have kept track).

3. Should I look at any other deductions?

I know there will be people that will say that we need to speak to an accountant, and we intend to. I am just looking for a little education before we meet with one.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.
I should have clarified the section about my income. I work for an employer (city government) and our total household income was about 53K including the 12K we made as a contractor.

I’ve been doing a good amount of business travel lately. My employer reimburses mileage and provides a per diem. However, both those amounts are below the standard IRS rates. For instance, the IRS mileage deduction is {content}.485 per mile, while my company reimburses {content}.405 cents per mile. The IRS per diem for the region I travel to is / day while my company pays / day.
When I file my 2007 taxes, can I claim the difference between the allowable and actual reimbursements and an unreimbursed business expense?
I travelled 2,000 miles for business, so was reimbursed 0. At the IRS mileage rate, that would have been 0. Can I claim the 0 as an unreimbursed business expense? Is the scenario different for mileage and the per diem?

I’d prefer answers from folks who have actually faced the situation (or tax specialists) rather than speculation. Many thanks!

accountable plan?
a. schedule d
b. schedule a, Miscellaneous itemized deductions
c. form 2103, employee business expense
d. no form; the expenses are not reported as income to the employee, so they are not deducted on an irs form in the employees tax return.

So… last minute taxes, coz I’ve been putting it off for fear of the headache I’d get (and am getting).

I’m self-employed, and went through and deducted all business expenses (rent for home office space, computer stuff, stationary, supplies, etc, etc…). I also deducted my insurance premiums as a business expense, but then did other medical expenses as personal expenses.

However, not having many personal deductions, my medical expenses don’t seem to be enough to take any deduction, and being rather poor (oh woe is me) I’d prefer deducting medical expenses as a business expense if I can… can I? And if so, where do I do that? I only see a section for insurance… not misc. medical expenses.

Thankyou so much!!!
Nothing’s paid with credit card… all debit/bank card, and I have the bank records and receipts for everything. No interest. I don’t even have any credit cards.

My medical expenses exceed 7.5%, but it still won’t let me deduct them as those are pretty much the only personal expenses I have (most everything is business, as I work from home, so can deduct portions of utilities, rent, phone, internet, etc…) so I don’t have enough personal expenses total to get any deduction apparently (?).

I don’t make enough for them to bother auditing me… they’d be spending more to audit me than they’d get back (if they got anything back, as I have receipts for everything and they’re all legit).

Basically, all misc. medical expenses are through insurance (what insurance wouldn’t cover, etc…) which IS business, so…???

Ugh.

If anyone could further clarify I’d appreciate it (I realise I’m probably arguing a moot point, but hopefully someone can point that out?)! Thanks!!!
The verdict: taxes are way too confusing. Bah.

Thankyou to those who tried to help! I appreciate it.

I did a bit of sleuthing, and according to "Topic 502 – Medical and Dental Expenses" on the IRS’ website, I CAN deduct misc. medical expenses on " Form 1040, Schedule A". And I did… and it helped a lot. The info is here in case anyone needs it in the future: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc502.html

Cheers, and thankyou!

Off to the 24 hour post office to avoid the hoards tomorrow (ugh!)!
Kathykoul… thank you, but it’s already been clarified. I checked online (one of the links listed) and out of nervousness called the IRS after sending out my taxes (and was on hold for like an hour) and they verified that I can, in fact, take them as business expenses since I’m self-employed.

In the linked article( http://finance.yahoo.com/taxes/article/108550/nurse-outduels-irs-over-mba-tuition?mod=taxes-advice_strategy ), Nurse outduels IRS, she fights and wins a deduction for her MBA tuition. It seems that she wanted to deduct it as a business expense for education. Why didn’t she just use the lifetime learning credit instead and avoid the war with the IRS?

For seasoned tax preparers, enrolled agents, or CPAs please.

I had about ,000 in freelance/1099 earnings last year, which is enough that I’m getting more serious about deductions so I can avoid paying as much of that tax as possible. I’m a programmer, so I purchased a laptop and plan to deduct that and any hardware I purchased. I feel like it’s a stretch, but was also wondering if home expenses (e.g. smoke detectors, new furnace, etc.) are deductible. Is there a way to characterize vacation as a business expense if I incidentally did business/work networking and someone from the trip ended up working with me as a direct result? And what are sort of the standard easy deductions — charity, donations, etc.? Is there anything else?

Question about taxes and a car-I know that you can’t put an ad for a business on your personal car and claim the car as a deduction.

But what if your business is a car website/forum for a specific model of car? The site/forum shows how to do car maintenance, answers other’s questions, install power upgrades and aftermarket parts, making misc. modifications, and blogging about the experiences and daily driving mileage. The only income will be from google ads and bumper stickers and is very small.

I would only take a hobby and turn it into a business if I can claim the personal car as a business expense since the business IS writing, modifying, all about the car.

The expenses are the purchase price, depreciation, car parts/ modifications, gas, registration, insurance, parking space, tools to work on the car. The purpose is to add content to the site and are all exclusively for the website’s car. Even if I can only claim the cost of car mods and tools, this is over k/year.

I bought a home in November, ‘07 and am renting out my old property that I lived in until November. The renter moved in Dec 1, but due to a promotional two month no-rent period, they didn’t start paying until February ‘08. I also did about 00 worth of repairs on the old property in November to prepare for the renter moving in.

Specifically, I’m interested in:
* Mortgage interested. Where do I place each? Is the mortgage interest for the old property a personal or business expense or a primary residence since I lived there 11 months? Or is it prorated?
* Are property taxes on the old property personal or business expenses?
* Are the property taxes on the
I paid mortgage interest on both the old and new property that year business or personal expenses?
* Can I deduct the promotional cost (2 month free rent) as a business expense?
* Can I deduct the repairs as a business expense?
* Can I deduct the last 2 months of association fees and homeowners insurance as business expense?

I get these rich liberals in my store who want to maximize their deductions. Every little small business expense, every tax credit.

Yet these are the folks saying the rich should "pay more" in taxes. Well… wouldn’t just filling out the EZ form, or failing to take advantage of these deductions, result in "paying more" taxes?

I just find it fascinating. All these rich people brag that they’d be "happy" to pay more in taxes, yet here they are every year, lining up with their long lists of receipts to squeeze every last penny for themselves.