2018 Eleventh-hour Year-End Typical Business Deductions

12/18/2018

Your tax planning at the end of the year shouldn't be difficult. I have outlined below five strategies that will increase your tax deductions or decrease your taxable income in order to reduce how much cash you pay the IRS.

Prepaying your 2019 expenditures right now decreases your taxes this year, without question. While it’s true you kicked the can down the road some, perhaps you have an offset with a big deduction planned for next year. And even if you don’t have such a plan at the moment, you have plenty of time to create one or to put more big deductions in place for 2019.
The simplest year-end strategy of all is to simply to stop billing your customers, clients, and patients. Once again, this kicks the can down the road some and makes your 2019 tax planning more important.
With 100 percent bonus depreciation and increased Section 179 expensing in 2018, you can make significant purchases of equipment, machinery, and furniture and write off 100 percent of the value. Make sure you place the assets in service on or before midnight, December 31, 2018, to get the deduction this year.
Charges to your credit cards can create deductions on the day of the charge. This is absolutely true if you are a sole proprietor or you operate as a corporation and the credit card is in the name of the corporation. But if you operate as a corporation and the credit card is in your personal name, your corporation needs to reimburse you before midnight, December 31, to create the 2018 deduction at the corporate level.
And finally, claim all your legitimate deductions. Don’t think you have too many, and don’t try to guess which of your too-many deductions could be a red flag. First, it’s unlikely you could have enough deductions to create a red flag. Second, no one knows what those red flags are. Third, if the deduction is legitimate, it doesn’t matter if the IRS audits it—you’ll win.

As you can see from the five strategies above, there’s much you can do to control your tax bite.

If you would like to discuss any of these strategies with me, give me a call at 262-358-8297.
info@spenceraccounting.com

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Important Disclosures

Spencer Accounting Group, LLC does not provide investment, tax, legal, or retirement advice or recommendations in these blogs. The information presented here is not specific to any individual's personal circumstances.

To the extent that this material concerns tax matters, it is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, by a taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed by law. Each taxpayer should seek independent advice from a tax professional based on his or her individual circumstances.

These materials are provided for general information and educational purposes based upon publicly available information from sources believed to be reliable — we cannot assure the accuracy or completeness of these materials. The information in these materials may change at any time and without notice.

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Author

Keana Spencer is an Accountant, Entrepreneur, and Educator to her clients, with a strong passion. Keana has over 10 years of experience and through her practice, she is a source of knowledge and strategies to her clients.

Keana founded this website and decided and created this blog page to offer a space for those seeking knowledge to understand, however not to be confused with advice or planning strategies.

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