- 1). Get a receipt for every food and beverage you eat or drink while on assignment or on a job site. It doesn't matter if all you have is a McDonald's cheeseburger and a small Coke every day. As long as you consumed the meal while on the job or during a business trip, you can deduct some portion of the cost. Alcoholic drinks, however, are not tax-deductible.
- 2). Track your postage costs. We are all spending less on stamps in the era of email, but you should still write off the $5.68 you spend on shipping your photo proofs to clients or the $15 it cost to mail a Christmas gift to your most loyal customer.
- 3). Speaking of gifts--that customer that you thanked for his business with a $25 bottle of wine? You need to keep the receipt. Complimentary items you give clients, like the mints that sit on your desk or the coffee you buy them during a quickie morning meeting, are deductions waiting to happen.
- 4). Understand that your appearance is an investment. If you spend $10 every other week to get your work shoes shined, get a receipt every time. Also keep the bill for dry cleaning business suits or shirts.
- 5). Remember that supplies for a home office need to be tracked. It doesn't matter if one pack of batteries, a box of pens, an ink jet cartridge and three packs of printer paper were the sum total of your office supplies last year. Put the $83.76 you spent for them onto your tax return.
- 6). It does indeed pay to advertise--even when your advertising consists of renting a $5 bake sale table to advertise your home wedding cake business with free samples. Money that is spent on renting rooms at community centers to hold seminars ($20 to $30), booths at local trade shows ($40) or sandwich board in front of your office that you built and painted yourself ($35) should be brought to Uncle Sam's attention.
- 7). Keep in mind that miscellaneous items do add up. The lamp you bought for your office at a second-hand store for $20 is a legitimate expense. So is the $15 you forked over for a cab when you were late for a business meeting, the $10 you spent ordering business cards online and the $4 bottle of air freshner you bought to freshen up your business car.
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