Blog | The Tax Prep Team, Inc.

People often struggle with record keeping and are typically so busy that they are simply unaware of tools or services that have been developed that could greatly improve the recording of tax deductible expenses, mileage, etc. There are many topics we could cover here, but two that are universal. If you are in business, you have a phone and a car. Cell phones are pretty typical for smaller companies. What we usually see is a personal cell phone bill of about $150-200 a month, and of course the business owner wants to deduct it all. When you start asking questions however, it’s almost always a family plan with the spouse and kids on it, so 80% of the cost and

It’s hard to be logical all the time about everything. The most financially successful tax clients we serve at least attempt to force themselves to be logical, for their own benefit. For instance, our parents, as well as a subset of the economy including some popular radio show based advisors like Dave Ramsey, say you should pay off your home and have a “free and clear” deed as a goal (they are wrong in most cases by the way). That kind of thinking is emotional thinking, mixed perhaps with some presumptive attitude about what the general populous is capable of. “Well, we know we can’t get people to do what would really be best for them based on pure math and

When people save for retirement they almost automatically use accounts that avoid tax now. IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, 457s, all pretax retirement savings plans. Certainly, long term savings uninterrupted by withdrawals and the effect of compounding interest on interest earned is unarguably valuable, but doing that in pretax accounts is NOT the only way to have that happen! Non-qualified annuities and Roth IRAs allow the same mechanics of compounding to happen, and in retirement both can be as valuable depending on the circumstances and actions of the retiree. Annuities are underappreciated as a tax planning tool, because of the way earnings are treated as ordinary income upon withdrawal. However if annuitized at retirement (an option the advisors that distribute them don’t

An often overlooked tax savings opportunity comes from not fully understanding how you can use your cars as a deduction on your tax return. It is very common for people who have a Schedule C sole proprietor type business to claim their mileage on automobiles. But the privilege of using personal deductions on a tax return is not limited to someone who is filing a Schedule C.  For instance, a landlord might own three apartment buildings and file a schedule E on his personal tax return and not feel like he is “self-employed” as he has a full-time W-2 job. However, the use of his personal car on that schedule E is just as deductible as it is for the Schedule

People try, but “adulting” is hard!  Kids, pets, job, relatives, friends, bills, medical problems, car problems, work problems all in the last day, so when I have time I will start tax planning.  Same as….so when I have time I will start estate planning, it’s just so far down on most peoples’ day to day list of things to do that all the other issues just cycle in some complex order that nobody understands and the last two items never seem to bubble up to the top…UNTIL THEY DO! If you are a business owner, thoughts of tax planning might bubble to the surface a couple times a year, perhaps March 15th and April 15th (or later if you have