1086 – This is found money: Tom talks Forgotten Tax Deductions

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

Episode Theme:
Tom discusses a wide range of often overlooked tax deductions for business owners and individuals, encouraging listeners to explore all potential deductions with their accountant.
Key Points:
• Disclaimer: Tom is not a CPA; listeners should consult a professional. Many accountants stick to standard deductions, so it’s up to you to identify others.
• Startup Costs: Expenses incurred when starting a business may be deductible.
• Common Deductions:
o Taxes, fees, and charitable contributions
o Wages and payroll taxes (even for yourself)
o Retirement plans
o Bad debt
o Home office (must be a dedicated office space)
o Health insurance
o Education, training, workshops, and conferences
o Marketing and promotional expenses
o Travel and entertainment (client/prospective client meals)
o Charitable mileage and medical transport
o Student loan interest
o State sales tax on major purchases
o Reinvested dividends
o Moving expenses (especially for business purposes)
o Health savings plans
o Legal fees
o Child and dependent care costs
• Unusual / Lesser-Known Deductions:
o Gambling losses
o Senior citizen higher deduction
o Personal property taxes
o Stop-smoking classes, alcohol/drug rehab, fertility treatments
o Home medical improvements (ramps, bathtub handles, etc.)
o Service animal fees
o Worthless stock
o Professional subscriptions
o Energy-efficient improvements
Tips:
• Make a list of all potential deductions that apply to you.
• Research and discuss them with your tax professional to maximize your deductions.
• Tom encourages investing in education (like his IMTCVA school) as it can also be deductible and provide long-term value.
Resources Mentioned:
• Back episodes for AI hacks (Episode 1085)
• Automation book: screwthecommute.com/automatefree
• Mentor program: GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com
• Internet/distance learning school: IMTCVA.org
Overall Message:
Don’t leave deductions on the table. Take the initiative to track and claim all applicable expenses, even the unexpected ones, to legally reduce your taxes.

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Episode 1086 – Forgotten Tax Deductions
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1086 of Screw the Commute podcast. I know a lot of you are working on your taxes now, and so this episode is going to be a whole load of possibly forgotten tax deductions that may apply to you. Now, I'm not giving you accounting advice. I'm not qualified to do so. But I want you to think about these things and then bring them up with your tax professional if they apply to you. And a lot of CPAs just do the standard stuff to get you off their back at 100 or 200 bucks an hour, and they're not very aggressive to figure out all the potential deductions you could get. So it's up to you to find the ones that apply to you, and tell your accountant about them and keep track of the expenses that you spent on. So this is episode 1086, so I hope you didn't miss episode 1085. That was five AI hacks that are immediately usable, that are going to change the whole direction of using like ChatGPT. And I'm doing a whole a summit on this coming up pretty soon, I think, in middle of March, where I'll have loads of them even more so it'll be like a masterclass on it and save you tons of time, make you money, save you money, all that.
[00:01:50] And so episode 1085 will get you started on that. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to The episode number. All right. Make sure you pick up a copy of our automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Version 3.0 is the latest. And check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org, the only licensed dedicated internet and distance learning internet and digital learning school in the country, probably the world, and is certified to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning that's going to give you a highly in-demand skill in as little as six months and not put you in debt for the rest of your life. Okay. Let's talk about some tax deductions. Some of these I got from scores, which is the I think it's a government entity. It's where you older business people volunteer to help younger business people, uh, you know, with business problems. But and I'll have the link to that in the show notes. But I have a whole bunch of bonus crazy ones that you probably never would have thought of. All right, so let's get going here. First thing is start up costs. You can deduct things that when you start a business.
[00:03:18] And I'm not even going to put numbers on all these things because I think I have about 30 or 40 of them. So I'm just going to go straight through and and I won't expand on them too much because I just want you to think, oh, does that apply to me? I should look that up and I should talk to my accountant about it, or my bookkeeper or whoever's running your show. All right. Taxes, fees, charitable contributions. I mentioned that recently when I donated a bunch of books to the library. Wages and payroll taxes, even for yourself. Those are deductible. A retirement plans, bad debt. Like if somebody didn't pay you for the services rendered, that's usually tax deductible. Your home office deduction. You really have to have an office. There's my cell phone going off. You can't just throw your laptop on your kitchen table. So you need to have a home office health insurance. That can be a biggie a big deduction for you. Education and training workshops and conferences. You go to hey, my mentor program if you get into it or my school. All right. So check those out. Any kind of training to improve your profession any marketing you're doing. Travel and entertainment has changed recently. So I don't want to go too deep into that. But still part of that is tax deductible. Some people, you know, make it a point of going to lunch with, with their clients and, and some of that is deductible or prospective clients, even charitable mileage.
[00:04:56] So if you're volunteering for something. You can't take off for your time, but any expenses you incur in your volunteer work can, and mileage is one of them. Medical transport is deductible. Student loan interest that's paid by the parent is typically tax deductible. State sales tax on major purchases is typically tax deductible. Reinvested dividends so you don't get taxed twice. So if you reinvest them and don't take them and spend the money that's typically tax deductible. Moving expenses, depending on who you are, especially military, can be deductible. And especially if you're moving into a physical office that's, you know, pretty darn sure a business expense. Now you're still living at your house, but you're moving a bunch of stuff to an office. Health savings plans I contributions those kinds of things. If you do take an early withdrawal on some of those things, you usually get a penalty. And I believe that's tax deductible. Legal fees tax deductible. Some child and dependent care costs are deductible. Now here's some someone, uh, some of these are pretty off the wall that you probably didn't think of, but gambling losses are tax deductible. If you're a senior citizen, I believe you get a higher than average individual deduction. Personal property tax. Like in Virginia, we get hit really hard with personal property taxes.
[00:06:43] Now these ones I would have never thought of. Stop smoking classes alcohol and drug rehab classes. Uh, fertility clinics, I mean, again, I'm not giving you advice on this stuff. I'm just making you think if you've done any of this stuff, you have to push your accountant to say, okay, am I eligible for any of these deductions? Home improvements for medical purposes. If you had to put a ramp in or some, you know, higher toilets or handles on the bathtub, that's typically deductible. Service animal fees deductible. Listen to this one worthless stock. So let's say you had stock in a pumpkin farm and they called off Halloween. I don't know. But anyway, worthless stock is like a capital loss. They call it, uh, any professional subscriptions that you that you apply for or have any energy efficiency, uh, things you you do can be tax deductible. So by far, there's more than this, but I'm just trying, you know? This should give you a heck of a lot of things to think about here. And I'm going to put the one to the basic ones in these the scores link in the show notes. But if you just type in business tax deductions that people forget about, you'll come up with loads of sites that go over this kind of stuff. But I want you to get you know, I know a lot of people are working on taxes nowadays, so I want you to get the best you can out of it.
[00:08:28] I don't want you to pay any more than you need to. I always say I'd rather. And, you know, I started hiring employees. I mean, I had digital business, you know, 97% profit. I was going to pay a lot of taxes as I started hiring employees. I'd rather put people to work than buy. I always say buy bombs and just throw money away to all these crazy things. You see the government spending them on. So, So there you go. So listen to this over again. Make a list of all the ones that apply to you, and then research them and tell your tax person about them and see if you can get the bigger deductions. And then you can thank me anytime. But I think you should take advantage of the educational one by joining my school. All right. That's I did this whole thing just to pitch my school. I thought you ought to check it out for you or your loved ones, because it can totally change the course of their life, not put them in debt forever, and give them a highly in-demand scale that they can either work for somebody else, have their own business, or both. All right, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. We'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.