If you subscribe in the name of the business, pay for it out of your business account, have it delivered to your business, and it's an ordinary and necessary expense, then it's tax-deductible.
Your original post had the designation "EA" after your name, so I'm pretty sure you know what an ordinary and necessary business expense is, and even if you don't, I spelled it out using IRS terminology in my previous post. I don't know how I can explain it any more clearly.
-Mark Bole
The feedback has been interesting and thought provoking. In cases where Sec.
162 (a) applies as to what is ordinary and necessary and Sec. 280 applies to personal living expenses, the taxpayer bears the burden of proof as to what is deductible. As a tax professional, you have to make that determination to the best of your ability. Most due and subscriptions are placed in Other of Miscellaneous Expenses, although QB provides this account in the chart. I have never had a tax client that has been audited, although I have clients that in the past have been audited. Interestingly enough, I have found that self-employed individuals have been more rigorously examined for such items than C corps, LLCs and the like, especially where home office deductions have been claimed. It is not that much money, and I advise my clients to take such deductions for subscriptions because business people read articles that contain issues politically and economically. Newsweek, Time, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, Investors Daily are just a few examples that I argue are deductible on that basis. Mr. Bole, I know the IRS code as it applies to this subject matter and read case arguments daily. And I have read Pub. 535 more times than you will know. :)aps = Accountax Professional Services
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Where they're placed in the COA has no bearing on whether they are or are not tax deductible.
Totally immaterial altho some indication your advice hasn't been _too_ far off the mark, perhaps.
Simply because there are places where there can potentially be more to be gained and there is a pattern of abuse in that class of return, particularly for home office and characterizing income as distributions to avoid self-employment tax, etc., as simply two common examples...
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deductible
Yet you would claim subscription reading material in a physician's waiting room wouldn't be?
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Right! The other place is "Miscellaneous Expense."
But how do you compare one year's "earthquake repair" to last year's?
As for golf tees, we put that under "Morale." Same as gift certificates to Victoria's Secret, cases of Scotch, gambling debts, cable TV bills,
900-calls, and the like. We also code the office kitty's vet bills to "Medical Expenses."
deductible
I have never stated magazine subscriptions are not deductible. As a matter of fact, no one has hit the button on the head in all of this discussion and should have by now.
It is really very simple, so let me tell all of you the answer. I advise my clients to get a name for their business. Next, open a bank account in the name of your business, ala Jane Doe dba The Image Salon. Next, open a PO box at the post office. Order magazines in the name of the business and pay for them through the business. Place them in your salon for customers to read or peruse while they wait. By doing this, you are fostering good customer relations and building your business at the same time. Class dismissed.
Which kind of "earthquake remediation" or repair? The kind where you know where everything is, a big pile on the floor, or the kind where the building code says you have to dump a half million into reinforcements?
OT - Know a building that was required to retrofit. The building went through the Long Beach earthquake and the Sylmar-San Fernando earthquake without a scratch. After the mandatory retrofit the Whittier and Northridge earthquakes both caused damage. Go figure.
That's not the half of it. Aren't those kitty vet bills written off on the corp as a reimbursement to the owner who also takes them as a personal deduction? And that extra office / summer vacation home, corp pays the mortgage and both the corp and the person write it off.
I stated the same thing several postings previously.
-Mark Bole
Well, no. The Vet (at "Main Street Clinic") takes the company Master Card. Our corporate policy is for the company to pay for odd medical bills for the principals, so we code it as "Methadone Treatment" in the description field (which we figure would raise less questions than "de-worming" or "acute hairball").
Kitty doesn't seem to mind.
of fact, no
Sorry Mark, my Usenet client is missing some postings.
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