I was on the phone yesterday with a new Tax Office owner we support in the cloud and one of his business clients. He was a great planning client and had many talents and sources of income and had created a “self caused” tax mess for himself strictly because of the lack of planning a coordinated outcome of how his companies, K-1`s and other cash flows that would land together on his return. We talked about a schedule C business he had and the lack of deductions on the return that should be taken and are legitimate such as the “zero dollars” in advertising on the schedule against 100K of gross income!?!? I said, “even if its a 10.00 web site and a 10.00 vista print business card, you must have spent something??” In fact he had but like many people have a problem with wearing two, let alone five, hats and was simply afraid of the IRS auditing him.
Which brings me to my point (sorry sometimes that takes awhile because of my ADHD:) If you keep a folder with articles published about all the common problems and issues people have with Tax Planning then after you discuss a topic like this you can follow up the conversation with a link to the article to support the discussion. If the client has not yet joined us in killing the print industry, then mail a copy to them, fax or otherwise deliver a third party article to help them relax and accept the information recently shared by you.
In this case I would share this article I read in FP today;
http://www.financial-planning.com/news/tax_planning/irs-doing-fewer-business-audits-due-to-budget-cuts-2692127-1.html?zkPrintable=true
Start your own library of articles and storys, it will help close or cement pending business!
The Tax What if Doctor;-)