Our Tax write offs! - Forums Archive

Robot

2018-01-20 04:15:35

So, its Tax time(weird but, I really like taxes!!) I'm fairly new to the trolling game. Also fairly new to being a sole proprietor. What are the some of the things we can claim as taxable deductions?!

One thing I try to mention to everyone that is a commercial fisherman(and I'm not sure if this applies to deckhands, someone clarify?)

A Per Diem! As commercial fishermen we are able to claim X dollars per day as a tax write off wether we spend it or not(its a dollar amount 'per day' that changes from year to year) I think last year it was around $70 per day(a day being 24 hrs at sea or away from 'home) so: 100 days away from home = a tax deduction of $7000. Basic math. That's even if you don't spend anything! pretty neat. there is so much more to this than I am explaining but you get the basic idea. Ask your tax person about it! It might help you out. if not, it didn't hurt!

Anything else fun out there? Who is the best Tax guy for our Business??

Cheers!

Salty

2018-01-20 04:37:33

Dapcevich accounting in Sitka.

temerson

2018-01-22 07:11:41

Per Diem is an alternate substantiation method for your personal meals and entertainment expense while traveling away from your tax home...You can either deduct your actual expenses incurred or use the per diem method in lieu of actual receipts. You will want to track your actual meal costs for your crew/yourself separately, or come up with a reasonable allocation at the end of the year I.e. 50/50 for two guys if your crew was aboard all season. You can claim per diem for yourself and the actual expenses incurred for your crew grub. Crew is entitled to use per diem themselves if they too are traveling away from their tax home and incurred expenses for meals. If they don't incur any costs for meals than they are not entitled to per diem. Basically they need to have at least bought a burger or something somewhere and saved the receipt if they ever need to prove that they did indeed incur an expense for meals.

It is important to remember that the figure you quote is then reduced by 50% - as is the case with all deductions for meals and entertainment. You only get a .50 deduction for a dollar spent.

To be noted, you are only entitled to this deduction when you are traveling away from your tax home. Although as a matter of course most fisherman probably take it, there is always the possibility under audit of your tax home being ruled as the boat and this deduction being completely disallowed. The IRS has a pretty good resource page for fishermen that explains this... https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/fishermens-meal-deductions.

Anything ordinary and necessary in conducting our business is a deduction... You will be filing a Schedule C... Profit and loss for business. You will tell them how much income you earned and what expenses you incurred in producing that income. Anything you purchase that you needed to produce the income is a deduction. Pretty straight forward. Per diem is a nice gimme if you qualify so you don't have to be as careful about keeping every grocery or receipt from the burger joint. Don't forget to claim depreciation on boat and amortization on permit as well.

Anonymous

2019-01-05 00:05:00

Check with your accountant, but it is my understanding that when you first place your vehicle into service, you designate the write-offs as either mileage based, or actual expense based. Once you start with one way, you cant switch, otherwise when your vehcile gets old you would just switch to the expense-based method.

If youre already doing the mileage based write-offs, then thats where you are and you cant switch to cover that new tranny.

But like I said, I would check with your accountant just to make sure.

789

Anonymous

2019-01-13 14:15:53

Im glad things went so well. What school system in Maine? We are in RSU21 down in southern Maine. They also were very supportive of us homeschooling our 7th grader.

Anonymous

2019-02-01 23:19:23

I consulted with my accountant, and he said that after we spend 10 of our income on medical treatment, the rest is tax deductible. So save your receipts for EVERYTHING you do abroad obviously not things like museums and such, but food etc., since the argument could be made that you cannot cook your own meals while you are there.

Oh, and a doctors note couldnt hurt.

Essentially, for something like this, they cant deny you because, clearly, it is necessary. Plastic surgery? Not so much.