Be an Ethical Entrepreneur, Marketer, and Business Builder

A few more ways to get tax-free money from your business…

As I’ve pointed out before, when dealing with customers, team members, suppliers and even the tax man I’m not at all a fan of doing anything “under-the-table” or unethical. So keeping that in mind, here are a few ways to get tax free money from your business.

  1. Credit Card Rebates – This would be the ever popular cashback, rewards, points, and travel credit cards. The IRS currently has no provisions for rebates of any kind so this can easily add hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars in cash, gifts, or travel expenses into your pocket tax-free. I personally have 3 rebate cards. One from American Express, one CapitalOne visa, and a Discover card. The rebates range from 1-5% and in about 8 months of random purchases (both personal and corporate) I accumulated over $500 in rebates. My personal preference is to receive cash rebates so I can spend the money wherever I want however I’m looking into travel rebates since I tend to travel a lot.
  2. Purchase Rebates – These are the rebates you find at large retailers where you buy a fax machine and can receive a $50 mail-in-rebate. Guess what? The total expense is deductible and when the rebate comes in the money is yours. Check with your accountant (cause I’m definitely not one).
  3. Marketing – This is one of my favorites. A few weeks ago I sat down with my accountant and asked about my business sponsoring a race car at the local track. Turns out it’s 100% deductible. The racecar (or motorcycle), repairs, gas to get there, parts, etc. etc. can all be written-off as marketing expenses. If you are always racing something like me, then you really shouldn’t let this tax-free racing budget pass you by. Of course your race vehicle needs to advertise your business.
  4. Personal Development/Training – My accountant just educated me on this one recently. Currently I have 2 businesses that are about 4 hours apart with a total territory that would take me about 12 hours to circle by driving. Add to that the possibility of another business about 4 hours away in a different direction and the benefits of flying become quite obvious. So I’m working on getting my personal pilot’s license so I can fly myself around for business and also a bit just for fun. Just like with a company car, you need to figure out how much of your time is truly business and how much is personal and allocate the proper amount of your flight instruction and flying lessons through your business. Of course that would be a direct, pre-tax, business expense.
  5. Gifts – Not sure if this varies by state or is just for federal however my accountant informed me that a performance based incentive of up to $400 can be awarded to all employees without claiming it as taxable income each year. This can be in the form of a gift or simply cash. Hopefully you’ve performed well enough in your business to earn such an award. 🙂

It seems like I’m learning new, creative, legitimate ways to benefit from owning a business on a weekly basis so as I learn more I’ll post them. If you have any great ways to lessen your tax burden legally please let me know!

To your success, Bryan

P.S. I’m not an accountant and everyone’s situation is different, so make sure you check with your accountant before starting any of this. 🙂

About Bryan Trilli

Entrepreneurial Junky is probably the best way to describe me. I've bought, run and sold 3 businesses in 3 different states and started a 4th. The first 3 were brick-and-mortar service-based businesses and the 4th does internet marketing for service businesses. My team at Optimized Marketing guarantees to double your business' internet contacts in just 90 Days.

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