The Sunderland Group Professional Business and Tax Services for Small Businesses, Business Owners, Individuals. Certified QuickBooks consultant.

Benefits of Zero Percent Tax Rate
Now that we’re rapidly marching through 2008, we want to alert you to this chance for tax free income. Although this opportunity is scheduled to be around beyond this year, it’s hard to predict what may happen after this fall’s elections. Thus, while the availability of the 0% tax rate seems all but certain to remain unchanged for 2008, after that, there are no guarantees.

Substantiating Travel and Entertainment Expenses
Have you ever had an expense report returned unpaid along with a request for more supporting information on a travel and entertainment (T&E) expense item? This is a common occurrence because of stringent IRS documentation requirements to support T&E expenses.The information in this article should help you and your employees adequately substantiate your T&E expenses.

Standard Mileage Rates
The standard mileage rates for the use of a car (including vans, pickups or panel trucks) for various purposes.

Deducting Legal Fees
These days, you are likely to incur some legal fees sooner or later. Then, you will naturally want a tax write-off to at least partially ease the pain. Whether a current deduction is in the cards depends on the circumstances.

Deducting Home Office Expenses
Costs associated with maintaining a home office (for example, rent, utilities, insurance, repairs, and depreciation) may be deductible. If the office space is also used for personal reasons, the entire home office deduction is usually lost. However, expenses such as qualifying mortgage interest and property taxes are generally deductible regardless of whether a home office qualifies for other deductions.

Avoiding the Hobby Loss Trap
Classifying an activity as either a business or a hobby is critical for tax purposes since you cannot deduct losses from hobbies on your tax return. Making this determination, however, is not always clear-cut.