Habit #1: View every day as an opportunity to reduce your taxes
When you are making money, there is an opportunity to reduce your taxes.
When you are spending money, there is an opportunity to reduce your taxes.
When you have a new investment, there is an opportunity to reduce your taxes.
When you make a new deal for your business, whether it’s with a vendor, a customer or an employee, there is an opportunity to reduce your taxes.
Making it a habit to look at every day as an opportunity to reduce your taxes will create the right habits to actually reduce your taxes.
Habit #2: Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today
It is crazy to put off anything you can do today to reduce your taxes. Every day you delay your tax planning represents money you are unnecessarily giving to the government that you could be putting in your pocket.
Do something today to help your tax strategy!
For example, spend 15 minutes scanning and filing your receipts. Those who stay organized throughout the year are better able to capture all of their expenses, whereas those who only do it once a year usually miss several expenses.
Habit #3: The little things add up to big things
Little expenses can add up to big tax savings. Track where your cash goes. Cash is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to missed deductions – business lunches, tips, other incidentals. It’s easy to spend cash, and then forget where it was spent. This means the deduction gets missed.
A few dollars here and there adds up. Let’s say a person spends $20 cash every day on business expenses. That’s over $7,000 a year in missed expenses that can result in an overpayment of taxes of over $2,500.
Habit #4: Stick to your tax strategy
Most tax advice is geared towards those who are not business owners or investors which is why you want to make sure you stick to your tax strategy.
Business owners and investors have much better opportunities available to them in the tax law to reduce their taxes. Often times, the tax saving opportunities available to business owners and investors create permanent tax savings (this means the tax is eliminated) while the tax saving opportunities available to the general population create temporary tax savings (this means the tax is just deferred until a later year).
Habit #5: Stick to your wealth strategy
I regularly have people share with me that they bought or invested in something for tax benefits and then ask me if that was a good idea.
I always answer the same way. If it is part of your wealth strategy, yes! If you have not considered how it fits in your wealth tax strategy yet, you definitely want to do that first.
Focus on your wealth!
By: Tom Wheelwright – Tom’s firm provides my tax advice and wealth planning. I encourage you to check out ProVisionWealth.com