The tax code for the United States is over 50,000 pages. Buried in this code is the subject of per diem rates, a topic that can save businesses money on their taxes.
Per Diem Rates and Business Taxes
Understanding the Internal Revenue Service and all of its workings when trying to fill out your tax forms can be a monumental undertaking indeed. There are many complicated factors that work their way into gross revenues and potential deductions. In order to successfully get the best rates and save the most money, it is incredibly important to understand some of these complex concepts, such as Per Diem rates.
Employers who pay a per diem allowance to their employees for business travel obviously will seek ways to have this amount deducted which is very understandable considering it is a necessary business expense. The rates released by the IRS each year indicate how much a business can receive in deductions on their taxes from giving their employees allowances for business travel. Essentially, the Per Diem rates give businesses a scale as to how much they can reduce of the amounts that they are considered to have give their employees in wages, thus reducing taxes.
The Per Diem rates are split into two categories. CONUS rates are updated periodically and they relate to the rates for business travel and expenses within the Continental United States. On the other hand, UCONUS rates are posted a bit more often that have to do with the rates in relation to business travel and expenses undertaken outside of the Continental United States, whether it be foreign or even Hawaii and Alaska.
These rates are updated at intervals to reflect the estimated costs of sending employees on business trips to different locations. For instance, an employee flying to New York and staying at a hotel for a business trip would cost considerably more than another employee going to Nebraska. The Per Diem rates are calculated by the Service and attempt to deduce accurately the costs of going to different locations on business. With fluctuating fuel prices, the rates are being changed constantly as you might imagine.
If you have a business and employees that travel, per diem rates should be of interest to you. After all, they are going to save you a load of cash on your tax bill.
Per Diem Rates and Business Taxes
Write-Off Bad Business Debts On Your Taxes
Practically every small business has receivables that it cannot obtain from clients. If your small business doesn't have any such receivables, consider yourself lucky. For those small businesses that suffer from uncollected receivables, solace can be taken from the fact you can claim a tax deduction.
Bad Debt Tax Deduction
A small business can write-off bad debt losses if it meets nominal requirements. To claim such a tax deduction, the following must be shown:
A. The existence of a legal relationship between the small business and debtor;
B. The receivables are worthless; and
C. The small business suffered an actual loss.
Proving there is a legal relationship between the small business and debtor is fairly simple. You must simply show that the debtor has a legal obligation to make a payment. Most businesses issue invoices or sign contracts with debtors and these documents suffice to prove the legal relationship. If you are not putting your business relationships in writing, you should begin doing so immediately.
Proving receivables are worthless is slightly more complex. A small business is required to show that the debt has become both worthless and will remain so. You must also show that you took reasonable steps to collect the receivables, but you are not necessarily required to go to court to meet this requirement. A clear example where you would meet this requirement is if the debtor filed bankruptcy.
While proving that you suffered a loss may sound like the easiest requirement to meet, the issue is a bit more complicated. The Tax Code defines the loss as an amount that is included in your books as income, but is never collected. A classic example of such a situation would be a manufacturer that provides products to retailers on credit. The manufacturer can show a real loss if the retailer files bankruptcy.
Unfortunately, there is almost no way to claim a loss if you provide hourly services and use a cash accounting method. The IRS does not consider the expenditure of time and effort to be a sustained economic loss.
Small businesses suffer all to often from uncollected receivables. If you failed to claim such losses as a tax deduction during your last three tax filing years, you should file amended tax returns to get a refund.
Your Auction Business & Taxes
Taxes is an issue when running an Auction Business. But is there a grey line when it comes to declaring it?
It's really within reason if you're going to do a huge amount of it, a small amount is negligible.
Some people want to have a small business for write-offs, you might want to consider taking it to the next level and be able to write off some of your expenses like your computer, office space, supplies, etc.
Each state and each province has their own amount of sales you can do without declaring, & charging taxes. Check with your state to see what amount you have to do before you start taking taxes.
The BC goverment (where I live) gives you an allowance of $30,000 before you have to charge for sales tax, that's for someone who legally has a business.
There's definate advantages of having a business license, declaring your income and being able to have write-offs. That being said, legally you have to declare taxes if you're profiting from it.
Are You Holding Onto Too Much Product?
We all love to make money but after a while when you get too much product built up, you can start losing money. Why would we do that?
What happens is we get in a mindset on the value we feel our items are worth verses, what we can get for them. That's why when purchasing items it's important to keep in mind that you make money when you buy, Not - When you Sell.
But we also get into the territory where you feel you should get a certain price for something. And that's what we need to shake.... immediately.
You need to be watching your products and if something isn't pulling in the money anymore, you need to blow it out. Product on the shelves is not money in your pocket.... it's out of your pocket.
When we relate this to your eBay business, the same goes for what you have in your eBay store. Keep it fresh and alive. Have special offers, only for those who are buying an auction AND a store item.
Make it something that they want and give them a deal. Blowout product that you've had for too long. This will give you money up right away and gets you product you can actually do well with.
So, get out of the mind frame that to you need to make "X" amount from certain products, if they're not pulling it in, then "X" them out and move onto newer hotter products!