Tax Tips

5 Surprising 2016 Tax Tips for Businesses

One of the best ways a company can improve their bottom line this year is by using our 2016 tax tips for businesses. While the Internal Revenue Service certainly wants to get the money they’re owed, they also want companies to file correctly, and make all the right deductions. As long as your company makes money, so does the government, and they’re happy to help, as long as you know where to look.

Levy & Associates Tax Consultants has been doing this for half a century, dating back to when they were founded in the ‘60s. They have helped hundreds of companies through the decades, and these five tax tips will help your company, too.

5 Tax Tips For Businesses in 2016 You Didn’t Know About

Small businesses rely on making every dollar count, and this handful of 2016 tax tips for businesses will help them do just that.

  1. Deduct Appreciable Stock Contributions

While most small business owners are already well aware that they can claim the charity donations they’ve made as a tax deduction. But a smart business owner will donate appreciable stocks rather than money, which allows them to deduct the current worth of that stock, as opposed to the stock’s original cost.

How does that work? If you choose to donate one stock that cost your company $100 when you bought it last year, but now is valued at $200, you can deduct that $200 value on your taxes. In other words, you’re deducting $200 from your taxes for something you paid $100 for initially.

  1. Set Up Retirement Accounts For Employees

There are plenty of tax savings available for employers that work to get ahead of the game by setting up retirement accounts for their employees – and themselves! This is one of those tax tips for businesses that seems counterintuitive, but the fact is, helping others plan for later years can help your company take care of this year.

  1. Pay Before the End of the Year

The wise small business owner is making sure he takes care of his taxes throughout the year, which means starting to pay last year’s taxes well before the end of the year. Sometimes, your company undergoes significant changes to the bottom line, which could include the sale of real property, or increasing the number of employees. By paying throughout the year, with quarterly estimated tax payments, the final tally owed won’t be one massive bill.

  1. New Businesses Should Claim Start-Up Costs

This might be a no-brainer, but the important part to remember is that you can claim costs from before your company began operating! How much money did you spend researching the industry or the market you were getting ready to enter? Since a business can only be a new business once, you can only claim the start-up costs once – so make it count!

  1. Hire Someone To Help Manage Your Taxes

Paying someone else to help save you money can sometimes be a difficult decision to make, but know that about 84 percent of small businesses pay a third party to do their taxes, according to the National Small Business Association. Experienced tax professionals, like Levy & Associates, have done the work thousands of times, so let them help you, just like how your company helps customers with your own expertise.

As a matter of fact, Levy & Associates has a team of accountants, attorneys, tax consultants and even former IRS officers, and they’re main goal is helping their customers save money – while following government tax guidelines. These tax tips for businesses are old news to them, but these suggestions can still save your company at tax time.

Contact Levy & Associates for Dependable Tax Audit Services

Levy & Associates is available for free initial consultations. We’re happy to answer any questions you have about the audit process or address any concerns about your specific situation.

There’s never a good time to be audited, and the time-consuming process will take away from your business or family if you try to face it alone. Let us handle and coordinate communication, so you can return to your daily life.