If you’re someone who owns a business, congratulations because there are very few things more rewarding than being able to work for yourself. However, if you’ve been running your own company for a long enough period of time, you’ll probably also agree that there’s nothing more demanding and, pardon the pun, taxing than being your own CEO, either; especially when it comes to tax time.
The good news is that there are some major monthly deductible business expenses that there is a good chance that you qualify for. If you’re not sure what those are, here is a list of five of them:
Business loan. A lot us have to take out business loans in order to get our businesses up and running. As you’re writing your monthly check to pay the loan back, don’t forget that the monthly interest on that loan is completely tax deductible.
Mortgage/Rent. Did you know that if you have a home office that you can actually deduct that portion of your house? The way to figure out just what that amount would be is to divide the square footage of your office by the total square footage of your house. That will provide you with the percentage to subtract from the total amount of your monthly mortgage or rent.
Utilities. Who can effectively run a business without electricity, the internet or even a (cell phone)? Say that you purchase a cell phone online with a Verizon promo code from RetailMeNot.com. Just because you got a discount on the phone itself, that doesn’t disqualify you from being able to get a tax deduction on top of that. If you have purchased a phone and it’s strictly for the purpose of making business calls, you can write off the price of the phone plus your monthly bill from your taxes. With all other utilities, you must also (fairly and legitimately) figure out the percentage as it relates to the amount that you use for business and then deduct that from your overall monthly expenses.
Business insurance. Another expense that many people do not know is considered to be a monthly deductible business expense is their business insurance. Although you must have it to protect you from liability, it’s money that you get back in the sense that it’s something that can be deducted in full on an annual basis.
Website hosting. When we create a website for our company, it’s a way to let cyberspace know that we have something valuable to offer. It’s not just a great tool to market and promote, but it’s also effective when it comes to actually doing business and communicating with our customers. Although you only have to design the website once (unless you’re doing upgrades, of course), you do have to pay a monthly fee for web hosting; whatever amount that is, you can also deduct it from your taxes. When it comes to this particular matter, another added bonus is that you can also deduct other expenses that are related to your website such as hiring a data backup service. Just make sure to keep records of the amount that you have paid because in the midst of all of the “subtracting”, one thing that you don’t want to “add on” due to carelessness is an audit.
