Everything in life and in death is taxed,
You can't flush without getting taxed.
Often times the same item has been taxed a couple dozen times before it is discarded, and even then, as it decomposes in a landfill, it is still being taxed.

welcome to the world.

The tax department explained it to me this way when I checked in on taxing my clients: If they're not going to eat it or resell it then you tax it! To make a long story short, the end-user gets to pay tax. In this case, you are the end user.

Your tax write-off is that you can claim the expense (or at least part of it) as necessary for your business and it gets written off your profit at income tax time.

Then you can face issues like property taxes and on major expenses like structures, you may not even be able to amortise them lump sum, but over a period of years. There are no free rides.

Today is the day to get an accountant or a tax attorney. Let me rephrase that...yesterday was the day to get an accountant or a tax attorney.

Julia--I tried to answer your e-mail and it bounced back. Send me another with your address and I'll copy it over and send it.

Susan

When you puchase something as a business without paying sales tax, you either mark it up, resell it, and collect the tax for the gov'ment, or you pay the same percentage tax (called a use tax) on the item yourself. Someone has to pay the tax.

It is expenses that you incur against your income that is "written off". ie, you grossed $250k, but your business expenses including those items you paid sales tax on (and the sales tax) added up to $245k. You pay income tax on that $5k. Writing off means writing it off of your income.

The contents of your office is also known as property. Your computer, desk, ... Can you say "property tax"? This one is a surprise to a lot of people.

This is a second career for me, so I've been taxed on income for 20 years. And don't ask me about real estate taxes and car taxes in Virginia!

But as far as my office items, I paid tax at the time of purchase. I bought my computer last year retail, as my personal computer, and simply also use it now for business. I purchased my desk, bookcase and garden books retail, when I was working on my first, informal design jobs, before I was sure enough that the business would fly, that I went to get my business license.