Save 50% on your Food Costs? Tax write off idea.

D

dowork

New member
Apr 12, 2011
42
1
0
Some companies buy their employees lunch every day and give them paid gym memberships, etc. Which the big companies just write off.

Never thought about it before but we could all save a ton of money by having our INCs/LLCs pay the bill for all meals. Its just a perk of the company right?

If the big companies can do it, why can't we?

Most of us get taxed 50% when you factor in self employement taxes, fed, state, and local. So your saving 50% on your food bill by having your INc/LLC pay.

Anyone do this? Obv need to consult the CPA, but seems valid.

side note, I know guys who work from home and lease cars in the company name...not sure how thats allowed though.
 


Restaurants only, no fast food, no grocery shopping. Everyone with a company does this so you should be fine. As long as you are there talking business with someone its deductible. It is one of the easiest write offs and your CPA won't even question it.
 
Perks are taxable as income. Case in point, my friends who play Major League Baseball get "free" tickets as "employee perks" yet on their W-2's they are taxed for each ticket they received (even though they gave them away to friends and family).

One of my buddies was taxed on his World Series ring... Fucking gubment.
 
dowork said:
Some companies buy their employees lunch every day and give them paid gym memberships, etc. Which the big companies just write off.

Never thought about it before but we could all save a ton of money by having our INCs/LLCs pay the bill for all meals. Its just a perk of the company right?

If the big companies can do it, why can't we?

Most of us get taxed 50% when you factor in self employement taxes, fed, state, and local. So your saving 50% on your food bill by having your INc/LLC pay.

Anyone do this? Obv need to consult the CPA, but seems valid.

side note, I know guys who work from home and lease cars in the company name...not sure how thats allowed though.
Click to expand...


Meals are typically covered only when it is an expense related to conducting business (specific rules apply), or if you are on an overnight trip/are working long enough where its reasonable to have time to sleep. Even then you can only deduct 50% of the cost of the meal and they can't be lavish meals either.

Perks are also taxed like Dwight mentioned.
 
Can't write off gym memberships but you can write off corporate gym equipment
 
Dwight Schrute said:
Perks are taxable as income. Case in point, my friends who play Major League Baseball get "free" tickets as "employee perks" yet on their W-2's they are taxed for each ticket they received (even though they gave them away to friends and family).

One of my buddies was taxed on his World Series ring... Fucking gubment.
Click to expand...

So your saying the big finance company I know that buys their employees lunch every day can not write off that expense since its a perk?

There's no way they would pay for 1,000s of employees lunches if they could not deduct those full charges as an expense right?
 
dowork said:
So your saying the big finance company I know that buys their employees lunch every day can not write off that expense since its a perk?

There's no way they would pay for 1,000s of employees lunches if they could not deduct those full charges as an expense right?
Click to expand...

No, what he is saying is the employees are meant to declare the free lunch as income because it's a perk.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCZRqH7sRyA]YouTube - Seinfeld - write off[/ame]
 
dowork said:
Some companies buy their employees lunch every day and give them paid gym memberships, etc. Which the big companies just write off.

Never thought about it before but we could all save a ton of money by having our INCs/LLCs pay the bill for all meals. Its just a perk of the company right?

If the big companies can do it, why can't we?

Most of us get taxed 50% when you factor in self employement taxes, fed, state, and local. So your saving 50% on your food bill by having your INc/LLC pay.

Anyone do this? Obv need to consult the CPA, but seems valid.

side note, I know guys who work from home and lease cars in the company name...not sure how thats allowed though.
Click to expand...

Just talk to a CPA - you are on the right track but there are definitely rules to it. For example you can only deduct 50% of the price for food.

The best way to eat 100% tax free I've seen is my friend that rents out bedrooms in his house. He has one chief there that he gives a reduced rent and the guy buys all the food and cooks it for him. So that basically means his food budget is tax free because instead of buying X amount of food a month he has managed to reduce his taxable income by X instead. It's not 100% legit really because he should be declaring the food he is given as "income" but at the same time it's something the IRS couldn't prove in any audit.
 
CONSULT YOUR FUCKING CPA BEFORE DOING THIS/
Listening to WF about taxes is like listening to DP for money making advice
 
johnmatrix said:
No, what he is saying is the employees are meant to declare the free lunch as income because it's a perk.

YouTube - Seinfeld - write off
Click to expand...

Ahh I see, thats interesting since the company never informs their employees of this requirement. I guess it doesnt' matter to them though, they get to write it off and its on their employees then.

miketpowell said:
Just talk to a CPA - you are on the right track but there are definitely rules to it. For example you can only deduct 50% of the price for food.

The best way to eat 100% tax free I've seen is my friend that rents out bedrooms in his house. He has one chief there that he gives a reduced rent and the guy buys all the food and cooks it for him. So that basically means his food budget is tax free because instead of buying X amount of food a month he has managed to reduce his taxable income by X instead. It's not 100% legit really because he should be declaring the food he is given as "income" but at the same time it's something the IRS couldn't prove in any audit.
Click to expand...


Thats a really smart move!

csnreyes said:
CONSULT YOUR FUCKING CPA BEFORE DOING THIS/
Listening to WF about taxes is like listening to DP for money making advice
Click to expand...

In my initial post I said: "Obv need to consult the CPA, but seems valid."

The idea just popped in my head and wanted to see what others thought of it, of course I'm not just going do it without talking to my CPA.


I know a few people who work from home that their CPAs were able to write off a leased car, even though they rarely if ever have to drive to a biz meeting. Anyone do this or know how its allowed? I wouuld never mess with something like this as it seems like a blatant red flag.

Try explaining why your company pays for your Benz that you only use for personal use and work from home.
 
who needs write off's when you can just win lunches

I've got a business card, because I want to win some lunches. That's what my business card says: Mitch Hedberg, Potential Lunch Winner.
Let's do lunch... if I'm lucky!
Click to expand...
 
Like it's been said already who cares what WF thinks, talk to your CPA. For example, where I live you can only deduct your employee's food but not your own (unless you're on a trip), meeting, etc..but certainly not while you're sitting in your "office".

People like to take all sorts of stupid risks. The fact is if you're writing off a car lease and gas ( at least here ) you're supposed to keep a log book of how much you drive, where you're driving and keep all your gas receipts. Even then you can only write off 50% gas.

Remember, an accountant can advise you on certain things but just because someone told you they wrote off their lease their accountant is NOT responsible for them if the IRS/other country equivalent comes knocking.

e.g. I've had "ideas" of things to write off and my accountant might explain to me in what cases it would be OK and in what cases it might not be OK but says that in the end it's up to me. Remember you are giving the accountant authority to act on your behalf. They are not responsible if you choose to write off things you shouldn't be.
 
talking to reg CPA's is bullshit.

unless they have faced the IRS in an audit pertaining to the question in hand, its just their opinion and not truth. just like a court case, anything can happen even though there are set laws and regulations in place.

talk to someone who has done this and faced an IRS audit pertaining to this, anything else is BS even if they have a paper saying they are a CPA.
 
eliquid said:
talking to reg CPA's is bullshit.

unless they have faced the IRS in an audit pertaining to the question in hand, its just their opinion and not truth. just like a court case, anything can happen even though there are set laws and regulations in place.

talk to someone who has done this and faced an IRS audit pertaining to this, anything else is BS even if they have a paper saying they are a CPA.
Click to expand...

Good advice.

So say we do a basic tax filing (not trying loopholes like the above) and use a CPA...then they fuck up a ton of stuff. Even though they signed the return are we liable or is it on them?

Its almost like we all need to be a CPA and Lawyer if you really want to be protected. We have no idea if our CPA/Lawyers are giving us the correct advice/counsel.

If any of them fuck things up for us, theres no much we can do unless we want to spend a ton more money in court costs.
 
You can write off a lot of stuff, and every deduction you take ups your chance for getting an audit.

I don't even write off my home office space anymore, the savings is just not worth the increased risk of hassle and according to my CPA, writing off your home office space is a flag. More importantly, if you are doing any real business, what percentage of your profits actually are meals and office space?
 
conv3rsion said:
You can write off a lot of stuff, and every deduction you take ups your chance for getting an audit.

I don't even write off my home office space anymore, the savings is just not worth the increased risk of hassle and according to my CPA, writing off your home office space is a flag. More importantly, if you are doing any real business, what percentage of your profits actually are meals and office space?
Click to expand...


I totally agree, never write off your home office...def not worth it.

Although if you break down your expenses in quickbooks and then send inyour balanace sheet, net income, expenses....they prob wonder what the hell PPV expense, banner expense, etc. I'm suprised those expense don't send up a red flag.
 
I write off lemonade that I buy from the stands the kids on my street put up in summer. (They take Amex).

Think I'm gonna pay $0.75 myself?

PSHHHHHHH - nah dawg
 
conv3rsion said:
You can write off a lot of stuff, and every deduction you take ups your chance for getting an audit.

I don't even write off my home office space anymore, the savings is just not worth the increased risk of hassle and according to my CPA, writing off your home office space is a flag. More importantly, if you are doing any real business, what percentage of your profits actually are meals and office space?
Click to expand...


So much truth here. A lot of shit I dont write off as well.

About my only expenses are:

1. Hosting
2. Domains
3. Advertising ( PPC, FB, PPV )
4. any outsourced shit for link building, content, etc
5. Cell phone ( i make biz calls )
6. flights and hotel stays at shit like asw/adtech

I pretty much dont write anything else off. I work from home so my costs are less but I dont write off any new computers, my DSL, supplies, food or taxi at asw/adtech, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom