At the end of each year, tax dues are something that comes to everyone’s mind. Business owners have to think about their personal tax liability and the liability of their company. We’ve put together a breakdown on the subject and a few options to help you with reducing tax liability.
What is Tax Liability?
Before we can talk about reducing tax liability for your business, it’s important to understand what it is. In simple terms, your tax liability is the amount of tax that you’re responsible for paying to a taxing authority based on income earned, gain from the sale of an asset, or other taxable events. We can break tax liability down into different categories: income, sales, and capital gains tax.
These taxes and their rates are set by tax authorities like the federal, local, and state governments. Those organizations then use those funds to pay for services and programs.
Reducing Tax Liability Through Deductions
Claiming your business expenses as tax deductions is one of the simplest ways of reducing tax liability for the year, but what expenses can be considered deductible? The most important thing to remember when determining if an expense is deductible is that the expense must be both ordinary and necessary.
An ordinary expense is something common and accepted for the trade or business. Necessary expenses are ones that are helpful and appropriate. It is important to remember that personal and capital expenses are not considered deductible. A few examples of expenses that are deductible include:
Education
The costs of education can be fully deductible as long as the curriculum serves to maintain or improve the level of expertise in your field and add value to your business.
The biggest thing to remember is that the education programs’ costs must be relevant to the current business. Workshops, classes, and webinars can all be deducted when they pertain to building skills that benefit your work in that industry. Even the cost of your transportation to and from these classes can be deducted from your tax liability.
Travel Expenses
There are a few requirements before you try and claim travel expenses as a deduction. In addition to the requirements of being ordinary and necessary, the trip must also take you out of your tax home for longer than a typical day’s work. Your tax home includes the entire area or city that you conduct business from.
If the expenses meet these requirements, then business owners can use travel, meals, and lodging costs as tax deductions for the year they happen.
Advertising & Promotion
Spending money to spread awareness of your brand is something that is 100% deductible from your taxable income. Advertising for your business can include anything from the cost of printing business cards, launching a website, or wrapping your vehicles. Business owners can write off all of these marketing opportunities as advertising and promotion expenses.
Fleet Wrap HQ is here to provide you with a fully deductible service that can help expand your business all while reducing tax liability. Simply by driving your regular vehicle routes you can gain new sales leads every day. From design to installation, we work with your business to create the vehicle wrap that best represents your business. Invest in your company’s future growth for the years to come and get a quote today!