The Change in Your Changepurse February 10, 2009

That time of year-a
Tax time is here-a
Many lira
Disappear-a

The above is perhaps my favorite all-time tax rhyme.  It’s from a song by Adam Sandler’s “Opera Man,” sung during SNL’s Weekend Update segment.  Even without paying taxes, many of us have recently seen our money begin to evaporate, in the form of slower sales, exhorbitant gas prices and drops in property value.  Some of these issues have been somewhat mitigated by the IRS’s 2008 Tax Changes for Businesses, while others have been made worse.  You can take higher per-mile deductions for your car, for example, but the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Self-Employment (Social Security) tax has increased.  If you’re using current tax preparation software, these changes should all be included, but if you’re filing manually, make sure you take these new rules into account.

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Worth Its Weight: NWBC Town Hall Meeting November 7, 2008

Today I attended a San Francisco Town Hall Meeting sponsored by the National Women’s Business Council–an advisory council that reports to the offices of the President and Members of Congress the issues that women in small business face every day.  While it is obviously important to make your voice heard to your representatives in government, our concerns as small businesswomen could have been collected via e-mail or online survey.  Such a method might have gotten more more responses (today’s event was limited to 200 participants) and certainly would have cost a lot less than holding a full-day conference in a hotel.  But I’m glad the NWBC didn’t go this route and I’ll tell you why:

1. Networking.  It’s true that as one speaker said today, “women love to help other women.”  I had many more people approach me wanting to offer advice or moral support than wanting referrals or publicity.
2. Resource sharing.  I have four pages of notes filled with nothing but the names of web sites, organizations and business services that other women at this event have used and can personally recommend.  I will be sorting through these in the next few days and reporting back which ones live up to the hype.
3. Brainstorming.  I can come up with several issues I confront every day about which my elected officials should be concerned, but there are also some I almost never think about that are nevertheless important.  One example: a woman in our break-out section on micro-business mentioned something about sustainability, which reminded me that sometimes I feel frustrated that there are no incentives for greening home-based businesses.
4. Sharing ideas directly.  I was able to speak directly to a member of the NWBC about my green home-office issue and she told me that this was an issue on which immediate steps could be taken, and would therefore be sure to bring to Senators John Kerry and Olympia Snowe of the Senate Small Business Committee.  Wow!  Also, an outreach member of the I.R.S. listened to me gripe about their web site: that the completeness of available information was excellent but that it is extremely difficult to navigate or search.  She recommended I use Publication 910 (her professed favorite) to find a list of the I.R.S.’s free resources for small businesses, and a full index of their other publications.  I suggested that this publication be made visible in the Small Business section of the web site, and while I was I surprised that she seemed suprised by this suggestion, she nevertheless thanked me for it and said she’d pass it along.  You just can’t beat direct results, folks.

Sure, the NWBC could have conducted an electronic survey, or just directed us Biz Misses to Obama’s new web site, but even in this age of online sales and networking, there is still no substitute for being in the company of your sisters.

p.s.  If you didn’t a get chance to attend one of their Town Hall meetings, you can e-mail the NWBC at info@nwbc.gov with your concerns.  There are only four women in the office, so they will read your message and get back to you.

Dear Diary, Today I Went to Starbucks March 27, 2008

If you are self-employed and either eat out or drive on the job, chances are you’ll want to deduct what you spend on those things. But meals and car expenses are two of the most likely things on your tax return to get scrutinized by the IRS, and who wants to organize hundreds of receipts for small dollar amounts? An easy alternative is to keep a spending diary–or two or three. A spending diary eliminates the need for you to keep tons of receipts for tiny amounts and is also one of the only spending records the IRS will accept as legitimate.

I have two spending diaries: a small notebook that I keep in my purse for meals/entertainment/public transportation, etc., and a pad taped to the dashboard of my car for mileage and car expenses. I recommend a separate diary for your car because it will be organized slightly differently than a regular diary. Some people like to use a digital or cassette recorder in lieu of paper (Blackberry/iPhone users, I’m looking at you) but either method is fine as long as it contains the proper information.

Like all documentation prepared for the IRS, a spending diary must follow a series of somewhat complicated rules in order to be admissible. Here’s how to set up an iron-clad meals and entertainment diary, for example:

• Include only entertainment and meals you ate out (not groceries!) that totaled $75 or less. You will need to keep a receipt for any meal or entertainment expense over $75 (no matter how many people you paid for).
• Create the following set of columns for your diary:
  • The date
  • The amount you spent
  • Where you spent it (establishment and city)
  • The names and business relationships of anyone you entertained
  • The business you were doing or discussing
• Fill out the information the day you spend the money

For your car diary, just follow the format from this IRS example:

Source: http://www.irs.gov/publications/p463/11081l08.html

Tip: record the entries from your diaries into a spreadsheet every week when you do the rest of your bookkeeping. This will help you to budget future spending and will save you time when you need to prepare your taxes.

Steady at the Wheel: Car Deductions March 19, 2008

One of the areas of your tax return at which the IRS looks most closely is the section covering car deductions. There’s a reason for this: it’s a difficult set of tax laws to navigate and many people over-deduct or use sloppy estimates, resulting in more money for the government when they catch you. You don’t need receipts for everything, since it’s difficult to get receipts for things like mileage, but you do need detailed records of everything.

Car deductions are easy if you have a company car. In this case, you can just deduct the whole shebang. What’s more complicated is if you use your personal vehicle for business purposes. If you fall into this latter category and need to itemize your deductions, here are the basic steps:

1. Keep a mileage diary in your car at all times. Write down the date, the starting and ending mileage, tolls, and one of the following purposes for any business-related trip you make:
   • Overnight travel away from home
   • Shopping for your business (not shopping for yourself, even if you use the purchase at your business, like a suit)
   • Travel to a professional development event such as a seminar or conference
   • Sales calls
   • Deliveries
   • Travel for marketing or promotional purposes
   • Travel to a job site or meeting as an independent contractor–NOTE** if the job site you are traveling to has you on the books as an employee rather than as an independent contractor, you are now technically commuting, which is not deductible.
   • Travel between job sites
   • Any other qualifying travel during your business day.
2. Keep all receipts and statements for tolls, maintenance and repairs, gas, auto registration, inspections, etc.
3. At the end of the year, total up your business mileage and divide it by your total mileage for the year. This will give you the percentage of your car that was used for business. Also, look up the amount by which the value of your car has depreciated (must be $2,660 or less if your car was bought new that year or was worth more than $12,800 at the beginning of the year).
4. Total up your car-related receipts and depreciation for the year and multiply the total by the percentage you just came up with.
5. Multiply just your business mileage by $0.31. This is the standard automobile deduction, calculated by mile.
6. Compare the results of steps four and five. You will use the higher of these two numbers to get your deduction.
7. If you are 100% self-employed, stop here. Your costs are fully deductible.
8. If you are on the books at anyone else’s business as even a temporary and/or part-time employee, your car costs are subject to the “2% floor.” In this case, total up your Adjusted Income for the year (income minus expenses) and multiply it by .02. Subtract that amount from the business-related car expenses you came up with in step 6. This is the total amount you may deduct. If you come up with a negative number, you may not claim a deduction.

See? It’s complicated. I didn’t even mention things like specific deductions for hybrid vehicles or certain trucks, driving for charitable purposes and deductions for interest on leased vehicles. For all the nitty gritty stuff, start with this page directly from the IRS.

A+BxC=Audit March 13, 2008

Most everyone knows that there are certain common parameters that make you more likely to get audited by the IRS, such as:

• making more than $100,000
• having low income and high expenses
• carrying inventory
• claiming high deductions for meals and entertainment, travel, and car expenses
• being self-employed and/or claiming a home office
• holding a mostly cash-income job, such as waiting tables or bartending

But did you know that the IRS actually uses a very strict formula to determine most of the tax returns that get scrutinized? It’s called the “DIF Score,” (Discriminate Income Function) and while the actual formula is very closely guarded secret, it generally works by comparing your income and deductions to other people in your tax bracket. If you donate an unusual amount to charity, or claim an unusual amount of driving mileage compared to others who make about the same as you, your DIF score goes up. The highest scoring returns then get scrutinized by an IRS agent, who determines whether your return warrants an audit. There are other factors that go into your DIF score as well, such as your age and where you live. If you’re 45, live in Beverly Hills, and claim a $25,000 income, for example, your score goes up simply for having unrealistic numbers.

So how can you stay under the radar? There are several strategies, but here are some of the most common:

• File a neat, professional-looking return. Messy, handwritten returns require closer scrutiny to begin with, and are more likely to include things like mathematical errors.
• File at the last possible minute. Prepare your return early and have it checked, but don’t turn it in until as close to April 15th as possible. You may even be able to file as late as the October 15th extension date (though you will still need to pay by April 15th). The later you file, the more likely it is that the IRS will have already reached their audit quota.
• Check and re-check your return. Mathematical errors, wrong social security numbers, lack of signatures, disagreements between your state and federal returns, and numbers that don’t match your W-2 or 1099 forms (of which the IRS gets their own copies) will all red-flag you.
• Preempt unusual deductions (e.g. your car got totaled or your office burned down) by including a note and receipt about the incident with your return.
• Watch your medical expenses. You can only claim non-reimbursable expenses (whether you were actually reimbursed for them or not) in excess of 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. This is a complicated deduction, and one that people very often claim incorrectly, so the IRS really likes to pounce on this one.
• Don’t round numbers up or down.
• Avoid the use of “miscellaneous” or “other” categories as much as possible.

In the end, even if you manage to blend in with the masses, your return may still be flagged for a random audit. It is therefore best to keep neat receipts and records for everything you claim (see future posts for how to keep proper expense diaries). The more organized you are, the quicker and less painful an audit will be.

Sources: http://money.cnn.com/2004/02/27/pf/taxes/avoidanaudit/index.htm
 http://www.totaltaxsolutions.com/avoid-audit.htm
http://www.askmen.com/money/investing/40_investing.html
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/AvoidAnAudit/5waysToAvoidAnAudit.aspx

Thanks, Dubya! March 11, 2008

Today when I opened my mailbox, I found a notice from the IRS about the “economic stimulus act of 2008.”  I wrote about this back in January, but Congress apparently made it happen in time for this tax season.

There’s plenty of confusing language in the one-page letter, and lots of provisions that don’t fit quite so neatly into their “How to Determine Your Stimulus Payment” chart, but basically it breaks down like this:

• If you made less than $75,000 in 2007 and you owe income tax (i.e. you’re not expecting a refund), your “stimulus payment” is $600.
• If you made between $3,000 and $74,999.99 and you are expecting a refund, your payment is $300.
• If you made less than $3,000 and you are expecting a tax refund, you do not get a payment.

The one thing to watch out for when you do your taxes this year is a calculated refund of less than $300.  If that’s the case, remove enough deductions so that you end up owing the IRS a few dollars.  That way, you’ll get the $600 payment rather than the $300 payment and come out on top overall.

For more specific info like payments for children, reduced payments for higher income taxpayers and what counts as “qualifying income,” you can visit the IRS’s Economic Stimulus Payments Information Center.