Small Business Tax Write-Offs

Taxes are one of the biggest stressors for small business owners. You work so hard all year long and now have to send away a chunk of your profits. I mean, taxes do help to run our country. But it still stings. Finding ways to reduce the tax burden can help you come out ahead. Here are a few areas you can look at to find write-offs that you may not have thought about.

1. Advertising Costs – Anything related to promoting your business should be written off. Find out the amounts you paid in Facebook or Google ad revenue, material and printing costs for brochures, costs for banners, etc. Anything you’ve created for your business to promote yourself can be included in this write-off.

2. Digital Services – You can write off the cost of a cloud file storage account, software, website fees, domain renewals and custom email fees.

3. Financial Fees – You can deduct any fees related to a business bank account or credit card including annual, overdraft or transfer charges. You can also write off the fees you pay to 3rd party processors such as Square, PayPal or other merchant services.

4. Vehicle Expenses – If you used your personal vehicle to make business related deliveries, errands or drive to meetings you can write off those expenses. Track the miles you drove between your store and the post office, supplier or meeting location and write them down. The standard mileage deduction changes annually so be sure to double check what the rate is with the IRS.

5. Office Expenses – If you purchased office equipment, upgraded computer parts, bought a new desk chair or anything else for your work environment you can write these expenses off. Go through your online orders to see what supplies you bought from Amazon, Target, Office Depot, Staples or any other office supplier and add them up.

Do you know of any lesser known write-offs?