Contrary to what everybody thinks, especially W2 employees, the IRS is your friend. The IRS tax code is designed and set up for promoting small business and home based business. Only five percent of the IRS code is really written about bringing in income for the IRS. The rest is all about expenses and deductions. So 95% is dedicated to reduce your taxes!It is awesome!There are a few things that you need to provide the IRS to qualify your home based business, but they are mainly looking for profit intent, consistency and record keeping.1. Profit Intent is relatively easy to prove. If it’s a hobby, like if you’re trying to turn your Saturday golf game into a business, that’s going to a bit tougher. Home-based businesses like network marketing, setting up a paint company or wedding planner or something, should be pretty easy to prove it’s a “for profit” business.2. Secondly, you need to work your business on a regular and consistent basis. There’s no specifics on that but, even four to six hours a week, every single week should be sufficient. Of course, I recommend more than that if you are going to be serious about your business.3. Lastly, you’ll want to keep accurate records to prove that you have income and expenses.If you keep accurate records of expenses, you can offset other income that you have. The expenses you have from RUNNING your business, such as expenses from your office in your home based business or money spent building your business, doesn’t go to waste. You get to write it off. Your marketing, your business cards, your flyers, brochures or anything like that. If you want to RUN a business, you need to use all legal write-offs in your business and that’s what will help you, not so much to get profitable right away, but make it worthwhile so that you’re not losing money.My Two Favorite Legal DeductionsMy first Favorite legal deduction is the home based business office deduction, which is huge!For example, if you have a 1,000 square foot house and you have a 100 square foot office, this gives you a ten percent write-off. It doesn’t matter whether you’re renting or you own your home and have a home mortgage. If your rent or mortgage is one thousand dollars, you get to write off, 100 dollars every month. If you need a new computer for your business, a video camera, software or anything that you use to promote and market your business, it can be written off.My second favorite deduction may be even bigger. It’s your automobile. Currently the business use mileage rate is 55.5 cents per mile. Always check the IRS website or with your accounting professionals, for updates.Let’s look at how this works.Let’s say you need to drive to go meet a prospect or you have to go to the office supplies store. You’re going to keep track of all your “business” mileage to and from your business stops. You track ten miles in each direction for twenty miles total. That’s $11 that you will deduct at year’s end. As long as the initial reason for the trip was business, you can write it off. It will be between you and me if you just happened to stop at the grocery store on the way home. Oh yeah, the food you ate at your business meeting;50% of that can be written of as well!Other Legal Deductions
If you have a child over the age of 6, they can be employed in your business. You can deduct their wages and they don’t have to claim it up to $5,450. Double whammy! It must be a business related activity and not just taking out the trash. They could do filing or database management. Face it, your 6-year-old probably knows how to use the computer better than you anyway!
With the proper planning you can deduct part or all of your vacations. Let’s say I am going to New York to meet with a client or prospect. We are going to have a few business meetings and talk about ways to grow our business. I can take my wife and we can do some tourist stuff while we are there. Travel can be written off with the proper planning.
All of your health costs may be able to be deducted.
Again, 50% of all food and entertainment that is “business” related can be deducted.These are just the tip of the iceberg folks. You need to learn this stuff! If you know what you can deduct, it will help offset the cost of getting your home based business up and running and put you in a NO LOSE, situation. Once you are profitable, you will still need to track your deductions, but it will have become second nature by that point.There are many books on this subject and your tax professional can help as well. You need to have the right tax person because some will fight you on certain deductions. If they are LEGAL, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be taking them. It’s all in black and white on the IRS website, so get familiar with it.Using Your Money For The Monthly Expenses Of Your Home Based BusinessI hear people saying that they just can’t afford to start a business. GARBAGE! If you are currently employed, which you should be if you are trying to start a home based business, you can afford to get started. All you need to do is change the number of withholding on your w-4 and receive your tax refund in advance.Dangerous? Not even close. It’s your money! Getting a huge refund, once a year, is not a good thing. You are loaning your money to the government. Why not use it to create income for your family? Don’t get this money if you are going to be stupid and just buy stuff.Use it to start a home based business!I hope this helps show you how to make money with a home based business of your own. It’s not that scary and you can “learn as you earn.”
The IRS Wants You To Make Money With Your Home Based Business
What You Need to Consider When Starting a Home Based Business
If you are starting a home based business there are a variety of things to take into account. Will you incorporate? Do you need clearance from your local government to do business out of your home? How are you going to manage the paperwork and the accounting? Are there any legal issues to be dealt with? Do you need to be OSHA compliant? Do you need a license – as you would for many child care businesses? Have you arranged sufficient funding to see you through your first months and years of business?All these concerns have bearing when you are starting a home based business. The shift from home being a shelter, to home being a place of commerce is bigger than it looks. The options can be extremely variable, depending on the type of work you are doing, the scale on which you are doing it, and the laws of your region.Even the choice of neighborhood can alter certain answers: some homeowners associations are structured to forbid home based business. While in many cases such rules can be navigated to the satisfaction of all involved, in others the entire question of starting a home based business becomes a nightmare of red tape and legal rulings.The first thing to consider for your home based business is whether your work is going to place demands on your neighborhood. Increased traffic, construction sounds, appealing but dangerous aspects of the work that can lure in small children and alterations to the appearance of your home matter, and increase the likelihood that you will need clearance to operate.Incorporation can also automatically include a requirement to inform and gain consent as you transform yourself from a simple civilian to a corporate identity. If you are starting a home business that involves any overt changes in the neighborhood you must be prepared to explore the legal complications involved.If you are considering a home business dealing with children, or livestock, be particularly aware of the many similar regulations controlling these two very different businesses. Hygiene, oversight, health regulations all come into play, as do child protection and animal protection services.Zoning and licensing issues can become crucial for any home business that deals primarily with any kind of living creature as a major aspect of day to day care and maintenance.Low impact businesses may entail similar issues, but usually on a much lower level. Starting a home business in typing, or computer consulting will still present you with due diligence issues, but seldom involves the degree of legal regulation involved in more physically involved endeavors.Even then, you will need to consider basic business concerns. How are you funding your start up? Do you intend to proceed as an incorporated entity, or as an individual freelancer? The tax laws alone differ, and depending on the amount of money made and the terms you will need to make a choice at some point what basis you will proceed from.If you are planning on shifting from full time employment to self employment, be sure to make a business plan and have it reviewed by a business consultant. This document will be your road map for the short and long term goals.The lure of starting a home based business is real and valid. If you choose well, work hard, promote yourself appropriately, and have even a bit of luck, your new business opportunity can provide you with income and independence for a lifetime.Make it a great dayDarrell Lischka
Education Law in the 21st Century
While it is not an area of law in which a great many cases are undertaken, the cases and issues that end up arising and being litigated in the education law area tends to prove to be very significant. This has been the history of education law and remains the reality in this day and age. Through this article you are provided an overview of some of the more significant and transitory issues associated with education law in this day and age.
A good many of the cases that have arisen in the education law arena have centered on equal access to educational opportunities based upon issues pertaining to ethnicity, race, sex and religion. Some of the most significant issues pertaining to education law have involved access to educational experiences by people of minority races. Of course, the most significant case in this regard actually was handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1959. The case of Brown vs. Board of Education brought an end to the concept of “separate but equal”, which guided educational systems across the United States.
Although the Brown case was handed down by the Supreme Court many years ago, there remain issues that still arise when it comes to making sure that minority students have an appropriate access to educational opportunities in the country. For example, many school districts became embroiled in cases involving the busing of students to achieve racial equality when it came to educational systems, only in recent times have attendant issues been resolved.
Some of the newer issues and cases involving race, sex and related issues and education law have centered on access to scholarships and other educational financing opportunities. There are still cases that arise in which a contention is made that certain financing options are not fully available to all individuals.
Most recently, many of the cases involving education law issues have involved individuals with physical or other types of impairments. The goal in regard to these cases is to work to ensure that educational opportunities are made regularly and fully available to people no matter their physical status. (Related cases also center on individuals who have some sort of intellectual or mental health issue as well.)
Finally, another active area in education law in this day and age involves public school financing. First of all, there are cases that center upon working to ensure that all public school systems in a particular state are fairly funded. Second, there are cases and issues that focus upon the funding of private school educational experiences. Legislative leaders have also found themselves involved in developing new laws to attempt to deal with these two types of issues in more recent years – a trend that is expected to carry forth into the future.
There remain lawyers in business today who are specializing in education law. More often than not these attorneys are most frequently involved in ensuring that people have an even and equal access to appropriate and meaningful educational opportunities.