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seven years and deducted against future income. Alternatively, the same losses can be carried backward three years to recover past taxes paid. The end result of this situation is you can turn a bad business year into an income generator by applying the losses to taxes in other years which effectively wipes out your tax bill for those years.

Another tax strategy is to look at your side businesses. If you have one business, you’ll often have a second one that is tailored to making some money off a personal interest. While you are in it mostly because you like it, you may not realize it qualifies as a business and can help you reduce your taxes. Let’s assume you are primarily a self-employed consultant, but also write travel articles on the side. You may view the travel articles as a hobby, but it is in fact a business. If you’ve sold or even tried to sell any of your articles to a publication, all of your expenses related to travel writing can be deducted from your taxable income. This includes trips and so on. These, deductions can significantly reduce your taxable income from the consulting business. Make sure to get a grasp of your overall business efforts, even if you don’t really consider them to be a business.

Consider employing your children to save on taxes. A child under 18 that works for you does not have to pay FICA and so on. If the total wages for the year are under $4,250, they will pay no taxes and you can write off this amount as a legitimate business expense. Of course, the child needs to actually be doing a legitimate business task, but filing and similar manual tasks certainly will qualify.

Tax strategies for the self-employed are plentiful. If you are self-employed, consider getting professional help. A good professional will save you thousands upon thousands of dollars in taxes, more than making up for their fees. Oh, you can also deduct their fees!

Article Source: http://www.ArticleJoe.com

Richard A. Chapo is with BusinessTaxRecovery.com - providing information on taxes.

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