Business Ideas Haystack

Do a seminar and publish a PDF on biggest tax scam tripups

It should not be a big surprise that nobody wants to pay taxes, so everyone wants to claim as little income possible and as many deductions possible.

This zeal can lead normally intelligent people to make stupid mistakes. A common tax mistake is to try deducting the cost of home renovations. The only way home renovations are deductible are

1-if part of a flip where you live there less than two years,

2-if the renovations were needed for handicap accessibility (lower kitchen counters and bathtubs with grab bars count; new siding does not count)

3-if the renovations are directly related to a home business (an entrance to the office counts, new kitchen cabinets in the home area do not count)

Many people try to take advantage of the third deduction reason. They may run a small business out of their home, but they fail to actually do renovations related to the home business.

Many people take this deduction and get away with it the first year. They think they got away with it.

The pipers (and tax attorneys) come to be paid at the time of selling the home. Normally, people living in their homes at least two years can keep all home sale profits tax free. This is a legitimate benefit of home ownership.

People who claimed their home as a place of business must pay taxes on their home sale profits. This is a normal part of doing business.

People get tripped up and signal red flags at the IRS when they have claimed home improvement deductions as a business need, then try to keep all the profits from their home sale because they were never really running a legitimate home business.

The penalties, back taxes, and interest can be huge.

If someone could research just the top ten ways that people get caught up in tax troubles, a short PDF and fee-entrance seminar could be given to teach those things. The PDF could be sold on eBay, and the seminars could have a $10-30 per-person charge, and could be given at any local library or motel room.

posted by Ideas2NoEnd @ 1:07 PM