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Being Self-Employed: The Most Common Tax Deduction That You're Missing

Being Self-Employed: The Most Common Tax Deduction That You're Missing

According to a study conducted by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of self-employed individuals in the country has increased steadily since all the way back to the 1940s. In 2015 there were about 15 million people who fell into this category, or roughly 10.1 percent of the entire labor force. While being self-employed certainly has its fair share of advantages, it also comes with certain unique challenges. Case in point: taxes are unquestionably more complicated than they are for W2 employees, as evidenced by the most common tax deductions that people who work for themselves typically miss.

Generally Missed Deductions

When a number of tax and accounting professionals were asked to single out the most common tax deduction that self-employed people were missing, a running of them in the responses was undoubtedly "deductions people don't realize they can be taking in the first place."

Joshua Standley of DKK Accounting, LLC, for example, said that "The most common missed tax deduction is the self-employed health insurance deduction and retirement contributions. These can be a great way to effectively minimize your tax liability."

Victor Visocchi of the Tax Defense Group, on the other hand, took a different approach. He said that many people don't realize that when you work from home, the government might subsidize what many people consider to be "personal expenses" - it just depends on which personal expenses you happen to be talking about. Many people fail to take advantage of a home office deduction, for example, because they don't think they technically have an office in their home - even if they do.

"The key to the home-office deduction is to use part of your home or apartment regularly and exclusively for your money-making endeavor. Pass that test and part of your utility bills and insurance costs can be deducted against your business income. You can also write off part of your rent or, if you own your home, depreciation" said Visocci. He went on to say that "Many work-at-home taxpayers skip this break, either because they don’t know about it, are afraid claiming it will trigger an audit, or are put off by the recordkeeping hassle necessary to back up the deduction if challenged."

In recent years, the IRS has come up with a number of simplified methods that allow self-employed people to take advantage of some of these deductions - the home office deduction included. Hopefully, this will help relieve some of the issues associated with self-employment taxes in the future.

The Problem With Visibility

Perhaps the larger issue at hand with self-employed people and their taxes is one of visibility. Because of the way many self-employed people choose to file, they limit their ability to either use the full slate of tax deductions available to them or wind up paying taxes they shouldn't have to in the first place. CPA Guillermo Birmingham echoed these sentiments when he said: "many sole proprietors could save thousands of dollars each year on SE taxes by opting S-Corporation election or restructuring their company into a two-category LLC Partnership."

Keith Ehrich of Ehrich Consulting Group not only agreed with this concept, but ultimately went one step further. He said that "most self-employed people don't realize how much they can put away on a tax-deferred basis each year. This helps significantly bring down the taxes they might owe."

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Lee Reams II

Lee Reams II

CEO

I am a tax and business news junkie who has spent the last 20 years developing and executing "best in class" word-of-mouth marketing campaigns for tax and accounting professionals. With TaxBuzz and CountingWorks we have taken that same commitment to quality content directly to the consumer. Keeping you up-to-date with the latest tax law changes, business growth tips and planning strategies to help you reach your best financial outcome.

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