How To Write Off Your Holiday and Travel...

I broadcast. I'm here to help you with your small business, your side hustle, save taxes during the holidays. See behind me, the snow's fallen, folks. It is right around the corner. I am so excited to go skiing this year and I love tax write offs during the holidays. So I'm going to give you every tip and strategy I have to help you make sure you're audit proof, no problems with the irs, and to maximize the write off, whether it's Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, New Year's, everything in between. If you're going on holiday in the US or outside of the US if you have rental property or not, if you're just driving Uber, maybe you're selling product online. Anything under the sun. I've got a way for you to get an extra tax deduction before the end of the year so you can harvest it for 2022. You're gonna love it. My name is Mark Kohler. I'm a CPA attorney, best selling authority, podcaster, YouTube personality, and I'm just a regular old business owner. Just love it. I was a kid with the lemonade stand. I'm here with you now. I got my Rockstar. I want to be sponsored by Rockstar. They're, they're, they're my, my true love. You know, this is what keeps me going. I only get one a day. They've got me on a short leash.

One true love a day.

One true love a day. That's all. Okay, that's James in the studio. He's going to help you out with questions. That reminds me here in James voice here in my ear, if any of you have a question about this topic, type it in below. And Whether you're on YouTube or Facebook, we're going to cover that question. One little disclaimer. Please ignore any posts in the Facebook portal from someone trying to talk you into buying Bitcoin or some other scam. There is no post from Mark Kohler today in the chat and anybody else that they're mimicking in the chat trying to talk about Bitcoin or whatever, it is a bot. It is a scam. Probably out of some country and we want to get in trouble. Some countries somewhere, probably even in the US Hiding and stealing our money. So just ignore them and just enjoy the broadcast. Okay, here's the deal. Travel is different from dining. Travel and dining is different than auto. And of course, office supplies are completely different as well. Now, why do I bring this up? Because you may be flying out of an airport, so you're going to have auto expense to drive to the airport. Then you're going to have parking. Airport, hotel. I'm sorry, airport and. Yeah, hotel and parking. And maybe valet. I love valet at Orange County Airport. One airport. The caught on that we need valet. Leave it to Orange County. And then you walk into the airport and you have lunch while you're waiting for your flight. That's dining. And then, oh, you forgot your charger. So you go over and buy a charger. People, that whole experience is a tax write off if you're traveling for business. So I want to try. Let's just talk about what is considered a travel write off and juxtapose it or compare it to dining, office supplies and auto. And then let's talk about things you can come up with as a good creative way to write off that travel. And I'm going to start with an example because I want to make sure you're all on the same page with me. I love the strategy of a board of advisors or board of directors. Now let's go to the whiteboard for those that are able. Well, I'm not on a podcast. Everybody can see me right now because I'm live. So here is the trifecta. I love this because this trifecta helps any of my client, young or old, rich or poor, to structure their business and tax life. So down here is your revocable living trust. We use that for camouflage, that's not for asset protection. And we're going to use that trust to avoid probate, save money. We're gonna die someday. We better have a freaking plan. Here's your 1040 tax return. Now over here, if some of you are just a sole proprietor selling something online and maybe you're getting a 1099 or you're just driving Uber with no entity, fine. Maybe you have an llc, you're a little more affordable. You got an LLC bank account, a tax ID number. Or maybe you've become an S corporation, that's an Inc. Or maybe you took your LLC and converted it to an S corp. So you're an LLC taxed as an S corp in any of these three situations. You're a small business owner, you own a small business. I tell this to my Uber drivers all the time. You're not an Uber driver, you're a business owner and you get to take tax write offs for doing business. Then over here, this happens all the time. I just had a woman that was at my Austin tax summit two weeks ago on real estate and she goes, yeah, I don't own a small business. Three minutes later she's act. But I have a rental in Montana. What the hell? That is a small business. If you own a rental property, you are filing on schedule E. And that is a small business. So people, whether you have an LLC with a rental property, you have a sole proprietor selling stuff online, you have an LLC and you're getting a 1099 from somewhere or a full blown S Corp. Inc. And you're a realtor, an engineer, a consultant, online marketer, plumber, electrician, landscaper, any of these things. These are all businesses where we get some additional write offs. And I want to write off travel, I want to write off auto and I want to write off dining and I'm going to put office supplies or electronics. These all kind of come together and it's very common that you're going to spend in these 3, 4 areas on a regular basis when you're traveling. So what I'm talking about with this board of advisors, let me just give you a quick of example. If you, if you have a small business, I want you to set up your own board. Your own board of directors. If you have a corporation. So I'll put bod, board of directors or boa board of advisors. You could have an LLC with a rental and a board of advisors. Now some of you may say, well why don't I set up my entity on freaking legalzoom? They didn't ask me about board of advisors. You can modify your llc. Our law firm does little cleanups and they tighten up your llc. Maybe you only have one sheet of paper. Let's get all the pieces and parts. So with this board of advisors, you can have your brother, your sister, your mom, your spouse, your kids, your aunt, your uncle, your best friend on your board and then on your board of directors, same thing on your board of advisors. For your llc. I want you to buy rental properties where you travel. Are your college kids living in your rental properties? Do you have a rental property next to your mom? Are you traveling to see your grandkids and you have a rental property in their town? Buy rental properties where you go. Then when you're going to check on them, it's a tax write off. And then at Thanksgiving, after you have that turkey dinner, you're going to sit around the table and you're going to have a board meeting. You're going to talk about the business in the future and share what you're learning about your small business. Even if you're sharing Turo and Uber and some online marketing strategy or you want to Talk about your Airbnbs or whatever. Have a meeting and pass on a legacy and talk about business with your friends and family. You might be out golfing, you might be out to dinner at Ruth Chris, I don't know. Have a meeting. We have a company maintenance program for 150 bucks, and my paralegals give you a list of 25 questions, and then you go to dinner and you talk about them. Did we make money? Did we lose money? Did we buy new assets? Do we hire an employees? What's our vision this year? What's our budget? Am I doing the home office? Do I have a company vehicle? These little questions you want to have. This protects you in an audit, if you get in an audit by the IRS or the state, and it helps you in a lawsuit because you're going to have this, these annual minutes. And I know some of you are like, well, you don't have to do that with an llc. Yeah, you don't have to floss either, but good luck at the dentist, right? It's the same thing. You want to do all these little things because it's the right thing to do. So when you have problems, hit you kick ass in court. You want to have your LLC or corporation tight, ready to go. And I want your tax return looking beautiful. So when it's time for Thanksgiving, you're gonna call your brother, your sister, your best friend, you're gonna go, hey, let's go golfing, or let's go have lunch, or let's go snow skiing, or let's go sledding, or let's just go watch some football. And I want to have a board meeting. I need your advice, I need your support, I need your love. I'm talking about my small business, and I'm frustrated, I'm struggling, I'm trying to do it, or I'm killing it. And I need your help. You have a meeting, you take notes. They sign it, you sign it. That's a tax write off, baby. You just had your board meeting for the year. There's no liability for them to be on your board. And so when you do that, now I can write off the travel to get there, the auto to get there. If I drove, I can write off the dining while we were meeting. And if I pick up any office supplies or tech along the way, I'm getting a tax write off for all that huge. Now this, keep it with the whiteboard here for a minute. Check this out. This was in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago, and I just loved it. So let's see here, we got Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Okay, now let's go do two examples here. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Okay, now let's say you're going to go travel for business. Under IRS rules, the day you travel is a tax write off. Then you have your day of business and the day of travel back is considered business. So in just a hypothetical, let's say I travel on Tuesday, I have my business meeting on Wednesday, I go and check on a rental property, I have my board meeting and then I travel back on Thursday. I probably, you know what, I'm going to erase this. And let's really think about Thanksgiving here. So let's say it really is Thanksgiving. I'm going to travel on Wednesday, I'm going to go have turkey dinner and have a board meeting on Thursday, and then I'm going to travel back on Friday. That, my friends, is a three day business trip. So you could write off travel, the auto, the parking, the hotel, and you don't want to stay with family. You know what I'm saying? Go get a hotel because not good, right? So let's keep family relationships not hostile and do not play risk. Can I just point that out? Okay, now so that's your business trip, travel on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Now here's the cool rule with the irs. If you travel on Thursday, do business on Friday. So here's our business maybe board meeting and you get stuck in Vegas on Saturday and Sunday, then you do business on Monday, maybe it's time to go meet with your landlord of your rental property. So you do your board meeting on Friday, bod and then you do your meet with the landlord on Monday and then you fly back on Tuesday. 100% write off. If you do business on Friday and Monday, those weekends automatically become a tax write off because you got stuck there on the weekend and the IRS allows for that. So now I just wrote off 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 days travel and dining to have my business trip. People, this is legit. It happens. And all the time my business owners do it. I've never had a client audited in 20 years for doing this. Now I'm not going to try to write off 10 days in the Cayman Islands, for crying out loud, when you only made $3,000 selling crap on Craigslist. But the more money you make, the more we can write off. You're making, you know, $2 million a year. I can write off the private jet for Thanksgiving making, you know, 20 grand a year. Let's Write off a little bit of airfare in a Hampton Inn and a Southwest Airlines flight. Let's be, let's be cautious with our money, too. Now, let me give you some example. And we're going to go to Q and A here in two seconds. Let me give you some examples of travel. Travel is 100% write off based on the days that I talked about, the days of business travel. And look, look at what you got. You've got airfare, you've got hotel, you have Airbnb, you have Uber or Lyft, whatever, right? You have valet, you have rental car, you have rental car, gas. Let's see, what else am I missing, guys? Oh, you have parking at the airport, tolls, taxis. Once in New York City, Matt Sorenson and I were there for a business meeting and we took a. We rented mountain bikes to get across from Central park to get over to our other meeting place. And so we rode off mountain bikes. We also stopped for a hot dog, got lunch. 100% write off. You can take the horse and carriage. Do they still have the horses and carriage in Central Park? I don't know. But you can take the horse and carriage to get across Central Park. It's travel. Got a ride off. Ooh. Which brings me to Seattle because I went out to Bainbridge island for a board meeting and I also went squatching. If you haven't been squatching. Oh, so many good spots in Seattle. You can literally get on Airbnb experiences if you haven't checked out Airbnb experiences. And there are people that will take you on a tour to go squatch. And you could be, you could see Bigfoot. I mean, this is a big deal. So anyway, you could go pay for the ferry. So we rode on the ferry from Seattle over to Bainbridge Island. Love that horse and carriage. I mean, this is all just wonderful stuff. So these are all 100% deductible. Now, auto is different. That's going to be mileage or actual. Today we're not going to be really talking about, you know, the auto deduction. And then you've got all of your dining this year, people. It's still 100% if you go out and talk business or you're traveling. Even if I'm traveling by myself, I can write off 100% of it. I don't have to have a business conversation with anybody because I'm traveling for business. Come January, it's down to 50% of all of your meal expense. That was a Covid relief that Donald Trump passed before he left is that you could take a 100% dining in 21 and 22 come 23 is back to 50%. So right now it's valet 100%. The tips, the bar tab, and the food is all 100%. If you eat out or do takeout and you're traveling for business, so huge tax write off people. This is good stuff. Anyway, I am ready for some Q and A. And let's, let's just jump off the whiteboard and see what we got. Just going to have some. My wonderful rock star here. Oh, good.

The love of his life, don't forget.

Yes. So good. Yeah.

So I got an awesome. Well, I mean, you may have went through this, but I'm just going to go ahead and give you this question. Kerry Britton, how would you use a board of directors advisors if you are an independent independent consultant?

Oh, I love it. Okay, let's go to the whiteboard. So Carrie is an independent consultant. I love it. I don't. I wouldn't want to be a dependent consultant, but I'm glad that she's an independent consultant. Okay, so I'm just joking, Carrie. All right. Now if Carrie is a consultant, that means she's getting a 1099. And so as a subcontractor, they're going to be paying her LLC or her professional corporation. And that's where 1099 comes in. Now, just because she's flying solo, so she's the 100% owner of either one of these companies. Carrie, if you're not an LLC or an S corp, you've got to get organized. So get your LLC or Inc. We charge 800 bucks plus filing fee to set up an LLC or corp in any of the 50 states. And you get an hour with one of my attorneys to ask all these questions and more. We want to save you 10 times whatever you pay us. I probably should throw that out. Our phone number for any of you that need a consult. 435-586-9366. Just call the law firm. They'll hook you up. All right. Now, Carrie's independent. This could be any of you out there with a little small business. Maybe you're driving Uber again. You're a consultant. You've got your small little entity here. Carrie, it's lonely. It's hard being a small business owner alone. No one's clocking you in, clocking you out, checking what you're wearing. No one's like helping you succeed. You're an independent contractor. You're out there working it. You need A board of advisors to talk about your marketing plan, your strategic plan, to give you advice when it's stressful. Guys, it is so stressful. I'm just going to throw this out. I'm going to throw out names. I had one of my daughters call me today and said, hey, Dad, I need a pep talk. Every one of my kids owns a small business, and they just needed a pep talk. Sorry, I got a little emotional there. That's what a board of advisors is, Carrie. They're your best friend. They're your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother, your children. They're there to help pick you up when it's hard, trying to make your American dream a reality. So you just build this board. You say three people, young or old, male or female, entrepreneur, business owner, or. I see entrepreneur or corporate, and you say, can you be on my board? I just want to have a meeting every quarter, at least once a year. And I just want to share what I'm doing in my business. Could you help give me some advice? Who's going to turn you down? Now, you want people that aren't going to beat the crap out of you, but people that are going to support you and give you a straight answer, and that what you're going to do. If you don't want to use my legal team to get your board off the ground, it'd be like a couple hundred bucks. But you pull out a piece of paper, go, I'm here by having a board meeting. John, Mary, and Sue, you're on my board. Raise your hand. Yes, I'm on your board. Okay, they're here. Okay. How'd the year go? It went good. Hey, guys, I need some advice. What are we going to talk? You're just having minutes. You're just taking notes of what the hell's going on. Now, I'd like it to be a little more formal, and there's some good IRS tips to have in that little meeting. And it's going to help you be more legitimate. But at the bare minimum, just take notes of what's going on in your business and what advice you need. Then I'll sign it. You put it in your corporate book. And if some of you are like, I don't have a corporate book. Get the cleanup. I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to write here, you need to talk to. I'm going to have you talk to Christy Rice. She's at my office, and she can do what's called a cleanup. Get you new minutes, get you A new LLC with an operating agreement, whatever you need. And if you're like, no, my LLC is cool, but I want to do the company meeting for Thanksgiving. Then call Becky Lloyd. These are two of my managers in my office at the law firm. And Becky Lloyd will give you a 25 point checklist of things to go through in your board meeting. We charge 150 bucks for this. What the hell? It's not that bad a cleanup. You might spend three to four hundred bucks, maybe. It depends on how much of a mess your LLC is. But get it organized. They may have you meet with one of the attorneys, but this go to whoever you're going to. But don't try to DIY this. I mean, I go to Home Depot to pick up supplies. I don't go to Home Depot to remodel my kitchen. I'll screw it up. So don't play lawyer on tv. You can get some basics. We'll keep it affordable. But get your LLC cleaned up and get your minutes going. But you're going to just have a board with three to five people, Carrie. And then you're going to have a meeting and you're going to talk about life and they're going to build you up and you're going to write off dinner and you're going to write off travel to go see them. And you can have five meetings a year. The more money you're making and the more legitimate the meetings, the more meetings you can have. My law and accounting partners, we try to meet quarterly and we try to get away for a day. And we're going to write off travel to get there and food. We used to be able to write off entertainment. That law will hopefully come back on the books. But entertainment is not currently a write off like it used to be. All right, next question. James, what do you got?

All right, our next question. We've got. This is an interesting name, Beef Bomb 10. And this question is great because I haven't heard it yet either. Do you get to write off expenses for your board of directors members as well?

Well, yes, if you're paying for it. For example, I got. I got my guys in the studio today. I got Tristan, James and Jack. All right, I say, guys, we're gonna have a board meeting. We're gonna go to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and we're gonna go have our board meeting and we're gonna go snow skiing. We're gonna all meet there the week after Thanksgiving. The guys are like, I'm in now if I pay for them to get to Jackson Hole. Don't even think about it, guys. But if I were to pay for them to get to Jackson Hole, I get to write that off because I'm paying for my board to get to Jackson Hole. Now if I say you guys get there on your own and I'll pay for your hotel, they're like, okay, we're in. I pay for their hotel. I get a write off for that because I'm paying for the hotel of my board members. So I only get to write off what I pay for. If I say you guys get there and pick up your own hotel, but I'll pick up all the food in the snow skiing. Okay, trick question, Tristan, what do I get to write off? So you guys are going to get there, you're going to pick up your own hotel, but I pay for the food and all the skiing. What do I get to write off? That's, that's okay. He's coming offline. The food. That's right. Only the food. Because skiing is not a write off. That's entertainment. Now, I do have, as a side note, I've got some realtors that live up in Salt Lake City and they show property in Deer Valley, Snowbird, and some of these areas where there's properties on the mountain, they have, literally. And a lot of these ski resorts are realtor line, so you can pay for a special ski pass so you can take your clients up on the mountain to show them property. That's a business expense because the ski pass is for you to show property. Now, for you and me, I can't write off Tristan Jackson James ski pass because that's entertainment. But let's say during the day we stop at lunch up on the mountain. I get to write off the food, but I can't write off the entertainment.

But what if we're, what if we're riding down the hill together, having the conversation? Business meeting down the hill.

I know he's. I, I could ride off your boat a bag and you're a hot dog. But I can't write off. Even if we're talking on the ski lift all the way up and we're talking all the way down. I don't get to write off the skiing, but I could write off the hotel, the food and the parking.

Well, Carrie is very happy with that info. She says I'm missing out on a lot of tax deductions and one of those heads exploding emojis. You saved the day again, Mark.

Hey, we're going to do this right now, Tristan. You can even jump through the picture of the camera if you have to. Grab me that book right there, if you could. Okay, so Tristan's in the studio. Carrie, I'm going to give you a free book. For anybody out there, don't type. I want a free book too. I might throw one out, but I want to give you this book. Look at Tristan's diving under the camera. He's so athletic. Okay, so this is my tax and legal playbook. 2nd edition, 2530 game changing tax strategies, people. If I don't save you 10 or 20 grand with some of the strategies in here, board of directors and paying your family is just one of them. And so, so, so powerful. And I'll give this to Carrie. So let's make sure we get her a book. Jack, can you make sure Diane gets one out?

Definitely. And you can. If you don't get a free book today, you can find it on our website also.

So, yes, let's write that on the board. So markjkohler.com if anybody you'd get over there to markjcohler.com you can pick up my new ultimate tax guide of 30 tips. It's free, 30 tips and it's like 40 something pages long. You can also pick up a copy of the book and I know it'll save you. If you want to get to Amazon, Audible, Barnes and Noble, all my books are on the regular sites. I want to give you guys another tip that brings up Jackson Hole. This is kind of fun. So my daughter Molly, her business, she is going to be opening a spa. She's finished her esthetician program. That was part of my master plan, is to make sure that I had one daughter that would own a spa. So I get special treatment at a spa. So anyway, Molly is my little spa treatment girl. She is so adorable. She just loves to take care of people's skin. And whenever you buy skin care product, you got to call Molly. She'll tell you what's good, what's bad. So Molly has a business plan. In fact, I was really happy with the esthetician school she went to. They made her do a business plan before she graduated because that's what you're going to be if you open a spa, that's a business. So it's a tough job, but we have to go on a lot of research trips to find the right spa treatments that are going to be integrated into her spa. So speaking of Jackson Hole, last Christmas, Molly and I went on some research excursions and had to test out a few spas just to make sure, you know, the hot stone massage was really going to be a big part of her spa. I mean, it was tough, it was brutal. But I did it because I'm a good father. And if I have to go to a spa and get a facial, maybe a hydrating facial, a men's facial, extractions, whole thing, I'll do it because I care. But just call me a giver. That was a write off. I was able to write off the spa excursion because we are gathering her startup costs to launch her spa. That's legitimate tax write off. I'm doing it. Boom, there you go. But you know, it's, it's brutal work. So I wouldn't recommend doing that. Going to spas all the time just to make sure they have quality services. It's, it's a brutal job.

Hey, Mark, I got a follow up question on that. Okay, so we were talking about writing off the ski lift ticket earlier. Well, what if I have a sportswear business and we need to do research on the slopes for my ski clothing? Can I write off my employees lift tickets?

Okay, well, let's see. How can I write off lift tickets? All right, I already told you, you could write it off if you're a realtor. Showing property. Now, let's say you are in the apparel business and let's be specific, ski apparel. So you're going to be going to

the

slopes and trying to hock your ski clothing. Now, let me say this research is always hard to write off and this is common around this type of year. A client may say, and I'm going to come back to your question, Jack, but some people say, oh, I went to Hawaii and we looked at rental property. You know, we were researching to buy a rental property. Sure you were. Yeah, I know, it's brutal. We had to leave the beach to go look at property. I know, it's just miserable. Right, but so you're going on trips to research to find a good rental. That's not a write off. The IRS says unless you make an offer and buy one of those properties or you go back three months later and buy one of the properties you looked at. Now we can show that a transaction resulted from that research. Now we come back to, I'm going to go to a ski resort just to look at clothing. Tough. But let's say you're taking a box full of clothing and you're handing out samples of your beanies on the ski slope. Let's say that you're going into the ski shop and you've got A little hookup with the ski shops and you're doing some consignment or you're handing off some product. Let's say you're going up on the chair and you're handing out product while on the chair, and you're taking orders and you're building a network. You're taking notes of the people you're networking with. I think, Jack, I could write that trip. I could write that off. I could get into that. But I want to make sure you're in the ski business, the apparel or ski equipment business. You're actually networking. You're making contacts. You're contracting or doing services or selling something with the ski resort. I love it. I love it. So maybe that'll work.

Awesome.

All right, next question.

Well, how do I write off my. My upcoming trip to Hawaii?

Well, some of you. Jack, maybe board meeting.

You know, Board meeting. Okay.

All right. Mark Kohler here. Call me a giver. I mean, it's miserable, but I'm doing it for you. I am holding my annual Hawaii workshop this. This coming month in November. Let's get the exact dates. What is it, Jack? So it's on a Friday, Saturday. So Friday, Saturday. There's Sunday.

It's the 18th and 19th of November.

Okay, so here we go. I'm gonna fact. This is really ugly. Let's get this right. Okay, it's the 17th and 18th of November. Okay, so Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, 18th and 19th. Okay, 18th and 19th. So that is on a Friday, Saturday. Right? Okay, so the 18th and 19th. Yes. Of November. I am holding my Hawaii workshop, and I'm going to be covering business owner building. The business owner's workshop. I want to talk about tax strategies, wealth building, strategic planning, and I'm going to bring together my financial freedom book along with my business owner workshop and really help you take your business to the next level. It's two days, 12 hours. I provide lunch both days. It's at the Sheraton in Waikiki. Now back to the whiteboard. Okay, now, on this, if you fly in, what I would probably do is I would do this. You could fly in on Thursday. So that's your travel day. And then you're going to go to the workshop on the 18th and 19th. But on Monday, you're going to schedule your board meeting, and I would like to have that. Maybe you get a consultant or a friend or family member that is going to zoom in to call with you guys. Maybe you're going to go visit a local business that mirrors your business model. Maybe it's just a simple board meeting. But you want to be doing business on Monday, maybe meet with a consultant, excuse me, a consultant over there, and then fly back on Tuesday. Now Thanksgiving, that week is. This is the week before Thanksgiving. So if you flew back on the following Tuesday, that would give you time to get back in time for Thanksgiving. So now you get to write off Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. So my workshop allows you to write off six days in Hawaii. By the way, my workshop, it's like 500 bucks, something like that. Got a VIP experience where we go out to dinner on Friday night for only 10 people and that's almost sold out. But six days in Hawaii, 100% write off. Come to the workshop on the 18th and 19th. I think we have a room block for just a few more rooms right now. But you can get to my website@markjkohler.com and go to workshops and you can check that out. But that trip is a hundred percent write off. If you can do business on Monday. I want to do business. I'm going to color them in business on Friday, Saturday and on Monday. Now you've got your six day write off. I, um, it's gonna be great. Very affordable. This isn't like a five grand, ten grand workshop. Some of those workshops that are charging that much, I don't know how they, whatever, leave it at that. I just. Hotels are expensive. I get that. But you know what, I'm doing this workshop to try to make it affordable. Come over any of my Hawaii clients watching locals only 60 is it, how much is it 50 or 40% off

or what is it 60% off for the in person and then VIP 30% off.

So 60% off for locals in Hawaii, off the in person, and 30% off for the VIP experience. And please come out. You guys will love it. If I don't save you 20 times that in the workshop, I've blown it. So it's going to be a great little workshop. Okay, next question.

I got a question from Christopher Dupree, M.D. it's real simple, but could go a long way. When traveling for long periods for business, are your groceries a tax write off?

Well, that's a great question. The technical rule on writing off extended travel for business is if you're, if it's more than a year, it's all off. So you got one year to kind of play with this. So let's say you have an office in another state and you're traveling every week for four to five days and then you can write off Your long term rental during that time period and your groceries. Now remember, you're putting in at least four hour day work days. You have to have four hours a day to consider it a workday. And you better be hitting an average of five work days a week. So you're going somewhere and you're working five days a week and you're stuck there on the weekends. And it's not your primary residence. The IRS allows that to you to take write offs for your housing and your food during that extended stay. But only up to a year. Then they're like, decide where the hell you're going to live, either move or go back home. Now keep in mind on the dining, I'm going to put this up on the whiteboard. With dining, it's 100% if it's prepared food. Now you're thinking prepared food. What the hell does that mean? Well, Donald Trump, before he left office, he was trying to help the COVID businesses that had gotten decimated with the distancing. Right. A lot of restaurants lost everything and they had to hurry up and figure out how to do takeout and delivery. And some businesses couldn't recover. But those that hang on, hung on. They passed a law for 2021 and 2022 that if you go to a restaurant and talk business, you get 100% write off. But it has to be going to the restaurant or getting takeout from the restaurant. But if I go to the grocery store and I buy food and go home and make it, maybe I'm going to go buy food for my Thanksgiving dinner. It's only a 50% write off if it's groceries because it's food for business, but it was not prepared. See, they're trying to help the restaurant owners with this law. So for our doctor there that's asking this question, keep in mind that groceries, yes, your groceries would be a write off, but they're going to be limited to 50%. If you go out to eat every day, you get 100%. So eating out gets you to the hundred percent. Now keep in mind that law ends December 31st. We only have about 60 more days of that benefit. Right? Next question.

I got time for one more question. And this is from someone who asks great questions every time, Sam Berger, I'm sure you remember him. Sam, are all types of businesses available, I'm sorry, Able to take advantage of all of the write offs?

Well, I think it's a little strong to say all types of businesses and all write offs. But I will say this. Everything I've talked about today.

I believe he's talking about today. All these write offs.

Yeah, all these write offs today. Any business owner can take abso freaking lutely. Now, there is a balancing act here. And by the way, I want to give our doctor that asked that question a book, tax and legal playbook. You know what? I'm going to do this. If you guys asked a question today, I think we only had about four questions. I know we had some internally here with our team going, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. I got a question. Okay. For those that asked a question today and we took your question online, you're going to need a copy of my book, Tax and legal playbook. All you have to do is email. Should I send it your way, Jack or Diane?

We could do Diane. And if you don't mind putting on the whiteboard, you might want to ask if Sam already won the tax and legal book.

Well, Sam, if you already won the book before you get it again and you're going to give it away as a Christmas gift, people, this book is a great stocking stuffer. For those of you out there that are like, I'm trying to find something for my dad or my mom or a good friend that's a business owner, this is a great book to give them for Christmas. It's a gift that keeps giving seriously. So Sam, you take this book and give it to someone. So Diane is d I a n n e@markjkohler.com and you just say, I asked a question on Mark's show Jack and will verify that and make sure you get your book. Okay, now the question was, all these things I talked about today, are they a write off for any type of business? Yes, but you want pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. All right, I guys want you to be little piggies. But don't get too greedy. If you're only bringing in 10 or 20 grand in your business, I'm not going to write off five grand in dining. Right. If you're bringing in a couple hundred grand, I might write off 10,000 in dining. It's got to be, it's got to be in perspective of and relative to your overall business model, your business revenue and what you're doing. Just like Jack asked about riding off a ski lift ticket. Well, your business has got to relate to the reason why you need a ski lift ticket. I can't write off a ski lift ticket for entertainment. Talking business. I used to be able to. Four years ago it was a write off. Not right now and, but right now you got to have a business reason to pay for that ski lift ticket in some sort of act of commerce, in closing a deal or making a sale if it can't just be a conversation or a meeting. So entertainment is very challenging to write off. But with all that said, you want to look at the dollar amount compared to your overall gross income or net income to make sure you're not being too aggressive. But these, Sam, these are all write off any type of business. Every one of these I'd write off with an Uber driver, a dentist, a doctor, a landscaper, an engineer, an accountant, a lawyer, a consultant. Guys, it's all good. I feel like I want to say this to just everybody out there too. Thanks for watching this, people. I'm grateful you're here because it is. It's hard sometimes being a small business owner. It can be lonely. It can be so rewarding. It's so exciting to see something you're building grow just like as if you're writing music or you're trying to sell a product you created or provide a service you're passionate about and someone pays for it and they love it. That's a feeling. You just want to bottle it up and sell it, but you can't. You know, you just got to do it and experience it. And so all of you out there that have a side hustle, don't give up on it. Keep working hard and maybe you'll get rich, maybe you won't. But you know what? You don't have to make a ton of money to enjoy what you do and wake up every day passionate, excited to change someone else's life. It doesn't always have to be about the almighty buck, but it is a business. And you got a silent partner named Uncle Sam and he's going to want us cut. So all that fun you're having, let's not throw a wet blanket on it without doing some good planning. You're the captain of your ship and I want to say thank you for watching this live broadcast. Every Thursday, I try to go live, answer your questions, come up with a creative topic, launching a new membership site come January with all sorts of certifications and training on, on business and tax strategies that I think many of you are just going to eat up and love. And it's only going to make you a bigger, better. So keep living the dream, don't give up. And I'll see you next week for another live broadcast.