There's more than 200 business expenses that can be written off.
In this episode, I'm going to address the question "What can you write off as a business
expense?" Get ready. Most people have no clue how broad this category is
of legitimate business deductions that you can take advantage of when you own a business.
So, my name is Doug Andrew and I have been a financial strategist and a retirement planning
specialist for more than 45 years. But I've also mentored and coached
many, many entrepreneurs and business owners. I've been very blessed in my lifetime thus far to have
written 11 books. At the end of this episode, I'm going to show you how you can claim a free
copy of my most recent best-selling book. But my next book I'm working on right now is the 10 keys
transformation for business owners. So, many times when I teach workshops to a room full of
business owners, the common question people ask is, "Golly, what can you write off as a business
expense?" And I usually pass out this little handout one sheet of paper. And it contains over
200 different legitimate business expenses that you can write off if you keep the records quickly
and you do it the way the IRS says. There's a few more on the back. But I'm going to go
through some of these categories with you in this episode and a lot of times business owners go,
"I didn't know I could write that off. How do you do that? How do you pass the scrutiny of
an IRS audit?" So, I'm going to tell you a few horror stories about people who didn't
do it the way the IRS said to do it and those who did. And what categories that
may fit underneath your business where you can legitimately write off of business expenses.
And when you do that, that gives you more of an advantage to be able to write off a lot of
things on your business tax return before the net profit comes over to your personal tax return
whether you have a C corporation an S corporation, or an LLC or you're just a sole proprietorship and
you fill out a schedule C on your tax return. So, first of all, you must be meticulous with
your record keeping. You've got to keep track of where you spent the money and keep the receipts
as the IRS says you're supposed to keep them. For example, during a certain tax periods, you can
deduct a certain percent of meals, entertainment, or what have you. That has come and gone on what
percent you can deduct. But a lot of people don't realize if I have a meal and I'm away from my
home, I have to keep the receipt, I have to write on the receipt who I talked to during the meal,
the lunch or the dinner. Who I talked to what we talked about and everything. If you don't keep
track of that and keep a copy of the receipt or take a picture with your smartphone or whatever,
they'll throw that out. So, you have to keep meticulous records. A lot of business owners,
they will write off a portion of their home if you operate out of your home. Now, for years,
I not only have commercial space that I write off but I've always had a dedicated portion of my home
but you better keep it dedicated. I have a friend who was audited and the auditors actually came.
And they said, "Let's see this portion of your house that you wrote off as a business."
Now, sometimes if you are a barber or hairdresser or whatever, maybe a manicurist
and you have a portion of the house, you better make sure there's nothing personal in there.
This person had this office but they had written off all the square footage including the closet.
The IRS auditor opened the closet and his wife's sewing machine was in the closet. So, the sewing
machine is used in your business, how? "Oh, that's my wife's sewing machine." Disqualified. See,
if it's part of your home for business, you must keep it dedicated for business.
Sometimes they get really really picky. So, you want to keep records of your mileage on your car,
your car expenses, your meals, your airfare hotel, whatever. There are general categories that's
pretty much a no-brainer that you should keep track of. And if you look at just a schedule C
on a tax return... So, if you're a sole proprietor and you want to write off business expenses,
you can do that on a personal 1040 tax return on schedule C. And that's where they have
categories and you can see the general categories advertising rent, mortgages, vehicles, travel,
airfare. You know, those kinds of things. You can see the general categories. But underneath those
categories are sub-categories that a lot of people don't think about. Or it doesn't mean that's a
catch-all. Do you know on most of my tax returns, my CPA has had to put a lot of my business
expenses on an addendum, a different page? And these are things that are not included over here.
Maybe copies or printing or books because I'm an author, okay? It doesn't show books over here.
So, you keep track of all these expenses just because the IRS says, "Well, here's the general
categories that's all you're limited to." No. Any money that you spend to make money
can be deducted if you do it the right way. In fact, I've told many people, "You know what?
You could be way better off if you started a business." Start a business. I mean,
I don't care if it's one of those multi-level selling vitamin supplements or cosmetics or
whatever. If you have some type of a legitimate business, you can write off a lot of things that
you're spending money on right now that you're not deducting because it's not a business. But you can
turn them into a legitimate business deduction if you simply had a business that did this.
There's a lot of opportunity that a lot of people don't realize. So, I would admonish maybe you to
rethink your thinking and maybe start a business. What's a business? You must be in pursuit of a
profit. And so, as you do that, you can bring in the gross revenue and then you can write off the
expenses that are related to that particular area that you have started a business. And so,
I've helped a lot of people start businesses that never had any intention of doing that. And their
taxes overall went down dramatically because they were able to deduct things legitimately that they
couldn't deduct if they weren't a business owner. Is this giving you a few ideas? Well, let me share
with you a couple of other ideas and I'm going to go through some sub-categories that most people
don't think about. So, before I show you some sub-categories, if you know a person who has been
wavering "Should I start a business?" Share this video with them. Also on this channel,
I have a lot of other related topics. And at the end, I'm going to show you how you can read my
most recent best-selling book and claim your free copy of that 300-page book. So, I want to engage
with you to give you insights into opportunities that maybe you never knew existed before.
So, let me go through some of these subcategories here. I need to pull out my glasses because I'm
68 years old now. So, this is what I pass out to business owners in my workshops.
Corporate deduction list. Now, you don't have to be a corporation. It could be an LLC or a sole
proprietorship. But there's over 200 categories you can deduct on legitimately if you keep the
proper records. So, for example, under accounting, any accounting fees or expenses that you you pay
somebody or for software or quicken or whatever, you can tax deduct. Advertising expenses... Oh, my
heavens. Calendars, newspaper, design work, radio, graphic work, tv, brochures, catalogs, flyers,
inserts, business cards, yellow pages. Hello? All these things are deductible. Air conditioning,
airline tickets, airplanes. Hmm, if you bought an airplane maybe you lease an airplane,
maybe you charge it on an airplane. How about for any assistance? Automobiles? Oh, my heavens.
All kinds of expenses. There's like 25 different expenses related to automobiles that you can tax
deduct if it's for business. You get down to bbb memberships, babysitting services, bookkeeping,
business seminars, business, publicity. We're only in the B's. And I've already gone through 50. You
get over here to business awards. I'm just going to give you the major categories here. Bad debts,
books, bookkeeping, bonuses. You talk about boats? What? Boats? If the boat is used for business,
if you use boats to entertain guests other business owners and so forth,
if you do it the way the IRS says, you can tax deduct the boats. Business consultants,
business licenses, calendars, carpentry, catered mails, certified audits, charitable contributions,
conventions, copiers, computers. Of course, you get down here to dividends, meals & entertainment
--breakfast, lunch, beverages, everything like that. But there's only a certain percent you
can deduct on those. You get over here to fax machines and financial consulting
and fuel and furniture helpers and assistants, insurance. All kinds of insurance expenses,
internet, your local transportation, your legal fees, your machinery. Do you know you can deduct
massages? All you have to do is get a prescription from your doctor that you have had a lot of stress
and you're not able to perform well in your business as a chiropractor a doctor or dentist
or whatever and you can deduct the massages. So, you get over here to the newspapers the overnight
mail and all the shipping and so forth, office supplies of course is a no-brainer. And then the
prescribed items like you need air conditioning. Oh, thank you. So, you get a prescription for air
conditioning or cooling. Or again, health clubs massage, herb supplements, exercise equipment.
There's been many, many times that my physicians have prescribed certain medical herbs, all kinds
of supplements. And I can tax deduct all of that. Most people, they don't do that because they don't
have a business entity. Rent, repairs, retreats, seminars like family vacations with a purpose.
Click on that video in this channel because you can deduct a lot of expenses on family vacations
if you simply hold a business meeting for 90 minutes a day with your children. And if they
have business entities, they can deduct their expenses also. The airfare, the cruise fare,
the proportionate share of lodging and meals and everything, okay? Tips, travel, utilities,
uniforms, wages. Folks, the point is this: There are all kinds of ways you can deduct
things legitimately out of your business. I would say most business owners that I have coached, that
I've mentored, they don't even scratch the surface of writing off what they could write off if they
kept better records and they thought about it and they justified the reason as a business expense.
Now, if this is resonating with you, I do have a chapter in my most recent best-selling book. It's
called The Laser Fund. This is actually 2 books in 1. It retails for 20 bucks but I want to give
you a free copy. If you go to laserfund.com and contribute a nominal amount towards the shipping
and handling, I'll cover the rest of that cost and I'll pay for the book. So, to claim your free
copy, go to laserfund.com. This is 300 pages. 2 books in 1. This side is left brain --charts,
graphs. This site is right brand all the stories and there's 1 chapter in here about business
owners and how the laser fund is totally tax-free. You don't have to pay tax on the laser fund
when you're using that as working capital for your business. So, if this episode has given you a few
a-ha's, epiphanies, you have no idea what you're missing out on. But you will when you read this.