Business Tax Deductions
The Per Diem Method gives you a daily meal allowance for each day of the trip, depending on what part of the country you visit. For example, the per diem meal rate for Birmingham, AL is $44; for San Francisco, it’s $64 (as of 9/30/08).
In addition to these deductions there are a few other deductions that should be kept in mind while filing. Simply keeping good records throughout the year will help with these items and will make calculations at tax time less stressful.
This is an often misunderstood and overlooked way to save a lot of money on taxes. Remember that these types of expenses must be totaled up and declared on a separate schedule of your income tax forms.
A lot of small business owners tend to forget about this, but you can actually deduct your marketing or advertising costs from your taxes. Your marketing or advertising costs may include business cards, signs to put on your car, promotional flyers, and clothing with your company’s logo embroidered on it.
For 2009, this rate is 55 cents per mile. In 2009, if you drove your vehicle 10,000 miles for business, you can report a deduction of $5,500 — without having to keep any receipts for gasoline, oil changes, repairs and maintenance, insurance, etc.