By trade
Construction and the trades
General contractors, subs, electricians, plumbers, mechanical, roofing, and anyone billing by the job.
All industriesWhat this trade deducts
- Tools, equipment and the trailer that hauls them
- Vehicle costs — actual expenses or mileage, but you pick one and live with it
- Materials and supplies consumed on a job
- Subcontractor payments, which are 1099s, not just costs
- Licensing, continuing education and permit fees
- Liability and workers' compensation insurance
- Bonding costs and the fees to stay bondable
- Job-site trailers, storage and temporary utilities
The part that costs money
Your profit is probably not where your books say it is
A contractor on cash basis books revenue when a draw lands and costs when a bill is paid, so a job that ran twelve months shows a loss in the quarters you were buying material and a windfall in the quarter you got paid. Neither number is the job's profit. If your contracts span a year end or you are over the gross receipts test, there is a method question here with real money in it — and the bonding company and the bank are both reading the version you have not computed.
Other trades
- Restaurants and food service
- Property management and real estate
- Dealers and vehicle sales
- Freight, logistics and distribution
- Professional practices
- Retail and wholesale
- Nonprofits
No limit, threshold or rate appears on these pages, on purpose. Those move every year and a stale number under an accounting firm's name is worse than no number at all. Anything with a date on it lives in the Tax Center, where every entry carries its source and the day we checked it. If your situation needs a figure, call us and we will give you the current one.
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One email a month. Written by us, about the things that actually moved — not a roundup of somebody else's headlines.
Not sure which of these is you?
Call and a person picks up. Send a note and a person reads it. Either way it reaches somebody at the firm, not a queue.