[quote=FiremanJG]I wish I had a nickle for every farm and ranch I knew that had been audited.
See thread on red diesel in off topic.
In my years of experience the secret on taxes is do not get greedy.
Right!
Creative tax accounting works really well until you are caught.
I have a conservative accountant who believe in avoiding red flag deductions. She will usually contact me If I have tried to deduct one or more items that are apt to be red flags and ask me if I really want to deduct them or not. Is getting to pay one, two, three or four hundred dollars less in taxes by getting worth the risk of getting audited or even worse, getting a multi-year audit? Even if they find nothing wrong, you can be out a goodly amount of time for you and/or expenses for your accounting firm.
That is something we all need to decide for ourselves. After all, deducting the cost of an item doesn't make it free. In the grand scheme, it is more like getting it at a discounted price.
Fun example, I had a neighbor deduct a boat as a "business expense" because he used it to entertain clients. However, his Facebook account was loaded with pictures of him taking his family on water skiing on several weekends each summer. He did take clients out in the boat once or twice a year, no doubt, but the IRS dinged him on his yearly amortization and upkeept expenses on the boat going back multiple years, plus fines and late fees. Their argument was that only the outings with the clients counted as a write-off because the boat wasn't used primarily for business purposes...sort of like if you take a client to lunch in your personal car, you can't write off 100% of the cost and expense of your personal car, but you can write off the mileage for the particular outings.
Choose deductions wisely.