LVDell

Anybody lease their P-Car and write it off (the lease payments)??? Have no idea what the law is on this but I hear people all the time talking about writing off their car and just curious what some of y'all do (legally).

TIA fellas!

pl

write it off as business use.
normally ppl write 75%~90% of the lease as business expensive, which is before-tax money.

kilrgt

I think the tax laws differ from state to state and country to country. I can tell you this I bought my car, then I sold it to my holdings company(for a profit) , then I turn around and leased it my Company for myself, pretty good outcome, nothing like making money from your self.

pl

yeal, only your account(and you, maybe) knows what is your company and what is you.

peachboy

Being a fellow Canadian I can vouch that the level of ingenuity that we have developed here as a result of high taxes is hard to beat.

I just bought a farm, you should see the tax breaks available to us poor farmers ?
Can you put a flow in front of a Porsche????

peachboy

...should have read plow, not flow...

Riad

When I leased my 2001, I wrote off the lease payments. When I purchased my 2004, my accountant is amortizing it over a billion years or something... I don't know how it works I just drive it and my business pays for it.

LVDell

So I guess you have to own the business and then agree to pay for your employees car (which would be you)???

pl

the trick is you need to have business income. 1099 instead of W2.

LVDell

Maybe if I explain my situation then y'all can help explain it to me. My wife is a M.D. that works in a practice that is shared between docs (like a LLC) and we leased the Cayenne for her to travel to/from work. Can it be written off?

kilrgt

I would say part of it, again Dell it does depend on the individual situation..Our laws state if the vehicle is driven back to forth to work only then really you cant do much, but if she goes out with a work purpose , she should be claiming it.Call a good bean counter they know the best loops.

LVDell

Thanks Paul.....I'm making the call

gravedgr

I've wondered about stuff like this for years. All our friends use accountants at tax time and although not self-employed, they claim to have tons of write-offs. We tried taking our information to someone last year, but after looking at our paperwork he refused our money saying there wasn't anything he could do for us that TurboTax wasn't already doing - we were too "vanilla".

I feel like an idiot asking this here , but does anyone have any suggestions? Any of you Atlanta-based folks - can you recommend someone we can talk to for ideas? The wife and I make good money, but I always feel like we are being taken to the cleaners tax-wise.

moeck

FYI - Auto's if used for business can be written off whether purchased or leased. Specific rules must be followed because autos fall under what is referred to as "Listed property" and also "luxury auto" rules. They apply whether leased or purchased, contrary to what some would like to believe. The Porsche Cayenne falls outside some of those rules because the GVW is greate than 6,00 lbs. They're eligible for greater tax write-off's. The law is not that simple or that straight forward and in years past, many accounatnts let clients push their lease payments under the radar, even though they knew it wasn't correct. In 2005 the IRS issued circular 230 basically putting preparers on notice, you play the game and we catch you, it'll cost you - not just the client, big time. Basically saying we are now the tax police!
For info see IRS publications 463, 535 and 946, all of which are on line at the IRS site.
Check it out so you can ask the right questions of your accountant. Without giving any of you specific tax advice, I hope this helps. As a CPA, now I even have to disclaim what I am saying here on an email / posting, so gather information and inquire with your accountant. This is federal stuff and many states even differ from the feds.
IMO, totally agree with level of taxes and return being way over the top.

moeck

Oop's that's 6,000 lbs.