I should not be this excited, but I am! On December 27, 2020, in an effort to help the restaurant industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers enacted a new, 100 percent business meal deduction for calendar years 2021 and 2022.

 To qualify for the 100 percent deduction, you need a restaurant to provide you with the food or beverages. The law requires only that the restaurant provide the food and beverages. You don’t have to pay the money directly to the restaurant. For example, you qualify for the 100 percent deduction if you order a restaurant meal that’s delivered by Uber Eats or Grubhub. ( This is so awesome!!)

You must be present at the business meal, and you must provide the business meal to a person with whom you could reasonably expect to engage or deal with in the active conduct of your business, such as a customer, client, supplier, employee, agent, partner, or professional advisor, whether established or prospective.

 Remember, to qualify for...

The TCJA eliminated personal exemptions which makes your child worthless to you on your Form 1040. Sorry, but its true!

 But what if I told you there is another way to turn your child into a tax deduction?

 The current standard deduction for a single taxpayer is $12,000. This means that a single taxpayer such as your child can earn up to $12,000 in W-2 wages and pay not a penny in federal taxes.

 As the owner of a business, you have the advantage of being able to hire your child to work in your business, which creates tax-saving opportunities for both you and your child.

 The big dollar benefits of hiring your child go to the Form 1040, Schedule C taxpayer and the husband-and-wife partnership because such businesses are exempt from FICA when they employ their children who are under age 18.

 The S and C corporations and the non-spouse partnerships still have to pay the payroll taxes on all employees—period. There is no...

When possible, you want to claim that your office in your home qualifies as a principal place of business, because this classification 

• gives you the home-office deduction, and
• eliminates commuting from your home to your regular office. 

Current law gives you two ways to claim your office in the home as a principal office: 

• First, as a principal office under the rules that the Supreme Court finalized in Soliman
• Second, as a principal office under the alternative after-Soliman rules, where lawmakers added this alternative: “... the term principal place of business includes a place of business which is used by the taxpayer for the administrative or management activities of any trade or business of the taxpayer if there is no other fixed location of such trade or business where the taxpayer conducts substantial administrative or management activities of such trade or business”

If you have an office downtown where you spend 40 hours a week, can you claim...