Any Tax experts around?

Thorn, with the way your business is set up I would guess there would be someone at the corporate level you could ask about how to correctly do all the tax stuff. You may want to look into that.
 
You could talk to other consultants and see if they use a tax guy that knows the ins and outs of your business. My wife does that with Mary Kay.
 
They do if they don't want to get busted when the business paying them gets audited by the IRS. The company that was paying me cash out of miscellaneous funds and not 1099ing me got audited and it came out how they were paying me. The way they were paying me was not in itself wrong, but I got red flagged because of it. Luckily I reported that income, otherwise I would have been in a bit of trouble when the looked in on me.
i always thought that if a company is paying you funds from miscellaneous money and not claiming it as a business expense that they paid the tax on the money and you didn't have to report it.
 
Thanks Luis

nah I just pay state and fed. Our city tax is part of the homeowner's fees.

www.irs.gov usually lists where you can eFile for free as well for federal at least. You just have to read through their list and usually the site isn't free the next year. The one I posted has been the first one that I can file for free two years in a row.
 
I've done the standard deduction the last couple years because I can never seem to imagine being able to itemize and come up with more. Turns out that you can deduct sales tax this year. That puts me a big chunk towards matching that standard deduction. Anyone have a handy list of Things You Should Deduct so I can see if I can deduct those too and maybe get a return this year? I don't pay a mortgage and the loans I'm paying now that I took out for college don't qualify as "student loans" for the interest deduction. I'm going to hurt if I can't think of something else.

edit: found one http://kiplinger.com/features/archives/2007/01/taxopediaintro.html let me know if you have any other suggestions.
 
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I've done the standard deduction the last couple years because I can never seem to imagine being able to itemize and come up with more. Turns out that you can deduct sales tax this year. That puts me a big chunk towards matching that standard deduction. Anyone have a handy list of Things You Should Deduct so I can see if I can deduct those too and maybe get a return this year? I don't pay a mortgage and the loans I'm paying now that I took out for college don't qualify as "student loans" for the interest deduction. I'm going to hurt if I can't think of something else.

edit: found one http://kiplinger.com/features/archives/2007/01/taxopediaintro.html let me know if you have any other suggestions.

Make sure the sales tax you deduct is more than the state and local taxes you paid on your W-2. Pick the greater of the two. Just look at the Schedule A form and you'll get all this information.
 
Make sure the sales tax you deduct is more than the state and local taxes you paid on your W-2. Pick the greater of the two. Just look at the Schedule A form and you'll get all this information.
Texas doesn't have a state income tax, just higher sales taxes.
 
They have to be > 7.5% of your AGI
i think you can deduct any medical expenses which exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. health insurance premiums would take a nice chunk out of that, so that you might actually get to deduct some of the mileage travelling to the doc and co-pays and whatnot.
 
so all y'all who deduct mileage...do you save gas receipts? do you just write down mileage? i'm so paranoid about being audited and having to prove mileage and items bought for home business and all that. how do y'all do it?
 
so all y'all who deduct mileage...do you save gas receipts? do you just write down mileage? i'm so paranoid about being audited and having to prove mileage and items bought for home business and all that. how do y'all do it?

As long as you keep track of it, you'll be fine.
 
i think you can deduct any medical expenses which exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. health insurance premiums would take a nice chunk out of that, so that you might actually get to deduct some of the mileage travelling to the doc and co-pays and whatnot.

Premiums don't count unless they are already taxed before they're deducted. If they're pre-tax deductions, you cannot use them.