just graduated, so currently have no job, but I just began an online business and started doing pretty well. What is the best way to maximize my profits and minimize my taxes? I know there is a alot of deductions to be made owning a home business, what is the best way to approach this? Should i form a company, LLC, inc., etc…

at the end of the year, am I taxed just on my gross sales, or my profits? My costs will be high as well.

Any 1 good book to explain all this as well?

Thanks

Both McCain and Obama will have to raise taxes to pay for programs for which the public is clamoring, whether those programs are universal health insurance, expanding the military, trying to retire the national debt, or simply trying to balance the budget.

McCain proposes to increase your tax exemption for children by something like 5/year. That’s it, if you have children you get something, otherwise not. This will increase the deficit.

McCain proposes a 00-00 "refundable" tax credit for the purchase of health insurance while apparently proposing, as I understand it, eliminating the deduction for employer provided health insurance. This is a tax increase for business to pay for a tax benefit to the public. This is, ostensibly deficit neutral.

McCain will cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%. This is proposed to keep American companies on shore and to stimulate the economy. This will not keep companies on shore because the 10% tax savings on profits is miniscule compared to the as much as 80% operating cost savings of exploitation of cheap foreign labor. And since most corporations do not pay any taxes due to loopholes it is ridiculous. All that will happen is that those that are paying taxes domestically will pay less and increase the deficit.

All of this tinkering with tax cuts will result in a net tax increase because a higher percentage of the operation of government will be placed on your credit card.

Obama’s plan, a tax cut for the middle class, should be offset by rolling back the Bush 43 tax cuts for the wealthy. Curtailing tax loopholes for companies operating offshore will have far reaching effects including reducing the deficit. As far as funding for new programs goes, there is little doubt that these, like universal healthcare or improving public education and tuition programs, will go on your nation’s credit card.

What’s in it for me? After all, I’m paying for it.

Your taxes are going to go up with either Obama or McCain. For whom you vote, if that is your issue, depends entirely on how much they will go up and/or what you will get in return

It seems to me the only solutions the government can offer are either tax increases (end subsidies) or offer the public tax deductions on their tax returns to help offset the high price? The oil companies have no short-term incentive to use their profits to look for alternate sources. What do they care as they are making billions? We are a short-term looking society? No one cares enough for the future. This is a huge problem that is affecting every sector and every person and business. The government should end the subsidies, make them pay taxes just like the rest of us. Cry me a river.
What do you think? What solution would you offer to the government? Is it realistic? Why?
Reelbro: Then what about the tax subsidies that I’ve seen reported by the media? Is that not correct? I’ll check myself but do you know?
If that’s true then it seems those tax dollars should go back to the American people that buy gas and oil to help them in this tough economy.
Companies have more money than do individual taxpayers. That’s a no brainer. Of course they pay more. It’s not as if they would be more generous to their workers.

I just heard on one of those forum-type conversational shows (from an all-woman panel every week) One of the women use the statement that "I think the american taxpayers’ money should be used to benefit the American public".

My question is this ;

Shouldn’t the American Taxpayers’ money be used to benefit the American TAXPAYERS, and any profits from the rest of government be used to benefit "the rest of" the American public?!?.

Is it not the American Taxpayers that keep the money of the country flowing in multiple directions and keep the economy in flux and operating?, and don’t the people doing those jobs continually generate government income from penalties, fines, tariffs, production and licensing fees, gas taxes, renewals of licenses and registrations for vehicles, medical insurances, treasury bonds, etc, etc, etc ?…

Shouldn’t the Taxpayer be creating a route to better income from the money it costs to actually HAVE a job these days, and be promoting an actual worklife that CAN lead to a better worklife?.

And wouldn’t this money be put to GREAT use to provide a fair pay for same work law in all companies by job-class structure, legitimate tax deductions for people who really benefit the country with their products, or a cost-of-living increase that actually relates to the genuine cost of living yearly?.

People who drive would get related increases when gas goes up, people who ride the trains and public transportation would get a traffic decreasing benefit refund – that actually pays for more than a couple train tickets for the year, etc.

And at the other end, companies who cause actual damage to the cost-of-living, produce non-assisting items that don’t run or operate as "green" as they could would get bigger penalties until they DO operate properly for the future benefit of the employees and customers, and any business that provides services to non-employed people who are of emplyment age would be getting subsidies from sources OTHER THAN taxpayer dollars, meaning the actual Government income from all other sources.

And the people who run the government would get their salaries from those other sources as well.

Now I need to decide where in Y! Answers this would be categorized.

Good luck!.
ThAK YOU – JOHN C!, I agree very much with the teaching of job skills at middle school ages, but find that most 8th graders these days are not only unwilling to work and think they will be sports or music stars, or are under-educated by laxidazical teaching systems to properly answer even basic job training questions in some major areas.

Just seeing the mispellings and some of the questions here on Y! Answers shows a huge lack of desire to get money any legitimate way, or live "above the system" that supported their ill-planning childhoods.

At the same time, should that be MY financial problem when I earn a living, donate time and money to getting the people who I know who have lived "on the systemn" for years com-uters and training them in software for decent jobs, and helping them learn skills with ebooks and mentoring?.

Am I not already doing enough, and wouldn’t keeping more of my $ let me do more anyway?, especially in a larger free classroom environment?.
BTW – On the notes of the insability to filkl out an application, and colete an interview successfully, that word especially, isn;lt that the purpose of the high-school Civics class (called that in my days, now it’s economics and government usually), which is supposed to teach the absolute basics of not only big business, but running Your own as well?.

In that respect I think thousands of kids would benefit from a revamp of the business teaching part of the process, and relate better to managers, supervisors, and store and division managers and how they interact, as well as what each of them looks for in an employee for promotions.

Should they also use some of the Taxpayer money to create a business-minded education above the simple "Young Republicans clubs" and after-school programs for the "geek-set" and private schools?.

I started a sole proprietor business in 2008 and am calculating values for 2008 federal and state taxes. I buy items, and have them shipped directly to the customers. Can my profit total (before deductions) be after shipping fees, or is that before and the shipping fees are deductible afterward? I really want to do these right, and it’s a big deal because I will have to pay the 15% self employment tax on all profits before deductions. For example…Sally Sue purchased an item from me for 0. It cost me 0 to buy the item and send it to her. But I also paid in shipping costs. SO do I claim as my profits and then have a tax deduction of , or do I claim as my profits? By claiming I’m paying .50 in self employment taxes, but by claiming I’m only paying .50. And when those numbers equal thousands of dollars, it’s a huge difference.
To Morpheus: I do not make profits on shipping, and that is not what the question was. What I am asking is if the government will want me to provide a base profit BEFORE shipping expenses that I paid and then just deduct shipping expenses as a tax deduction OR if they see shipping expenses as something that can be deducted before base profit is recorded. In my example of the customer paying 0 and I pay 0 plus for shipping, that is saying that the customer paid 0 plus shipping, totally 0. I am an eBay seller, and do not condone cushioning shipping charges to make more profit, again that was not what the question was.

I did some work for a small start up business in 2007. The first few months they paid me a monthly amount and told me they were deducting social security and witholding tax. After a few months I was asked to be a consultant and they would pay me a gross figure. I thought this was OK at the time.

It now looks like they did not know what they were doing. They paid me net but did not pay the deductions to the social security or the IRS. They paid me gross for the time I was called a "consultant".

This all came to light when I asked them when I would get my W2 for the first few months so I could get ahead on my fed tax return.They are trying to work out what they should do and have asked me to help them through this problem. I like the people and the work but they need to sort this mess out.

What should I suggest to they do to put everything right? I am flexible and want to carry on working but I dont want me or them to have a problem with the IRS or social security.
The start up company is a Delaware LLC. The owner does not take any salary (as far as I am aware). But he will take all the profits. I dont know how he will deal with company tax return.

We really are very small only 4 people and we only started this venture just about a year ago.

The owner bought the LLC off the shelf as a shell company. He finds customers overseas and we give advice in our specialist areas. He is good at finding customers so work has been continuous which is great.

The customers pay the LLC before we travel and he pays us our consulting fee and keeps the rest.

Its going well so I dont want to rock the boat and I have a lot of freedom, travel and more work than I had before. And he is a good payer …always on time.

I think this issue is just because we are not business people.

I want to make sure I dont have a problem with the IRS but I also want the company to carry on so minimising any penalties is one of my objectives.

OK, it’s very simple.

You pay a 5% flat tax on all income. No deductions. AND you pay a 5% consumption tax on everything purchased.

We raise the "poverty level" to something that makes sense, and those that are below this, get all their 5% flat tax refunded. But they still have to pay the 5% consumption tax (of course, welfare will still be there to supplement to some degree).

Perhaps we could exclude certain necessities (prescriptions, basic foods, etc.)

Businesses would pay either 5% of profit…or 2% of revenues…WHICHEVER IS THE GREATEST. Why? Because if it’s whichever is the least, they’ll make sure that the figure it such that their profits are virtually non-existent.

Takes away the 1000′s of pages of income tax prep.

Congress doesn’t get as much? TOUGH! Learn to make the wise, hard decisions the rest of us have to make ever payday. Forced efficiency will result. Forget "revenue neutral."

Thoughts?

S-36 Specific deductions
S-37 General Expenditure
both under the head Profits of business or profession.

S-80 ( chapter VI A deductions) i wnt details on 80C, 80CCC, 80CCD, 80CCE, 80D, 80G & 80U)
I’ve to make a project on these sections so, if anyone can gv me other info abt these sections thn i would be gr8ful..

I live in the United States and I’m interested to know about saving receipts to receive a tax deduction.

Is it correct to say that; any money spent that is used to generate an income or a profit is tax deductable?

Is this true?

If so, does paying for food to live a cost of business generating profits? If not, then how do some people get to do this?

If my first question is true, then what exactly do you deduct? The sales tax that was attached with a purchase? The ENTIRE purchase?

I believe that I may be asking the wrong questions, but I am rather new to filing for taxes and what-not. Thanks in advance.

My husband and I have been planning to open a home based business for just over a year. Our plans are to open it by the end of 2008. My main concerns are taxes. We can not foresee our profits, but we are expecting under ,000 for the first year. It will just be my husband and I (no employees). What taxes will we have to pay?
We will have a separate building on our property which the business will be primarily run out of, can we use this for any deductions? I am looking for any information that will help us to get the business started and have everything run smoothly. Any help would be appreciated, the more detailed the better.