By trade
Professional practices
Medical and dental practices, law firms, architects, engineers, agencies and consultancies.
All industriesWhat this trade deducts
- Malpractice and professional liability insurance
- Licensing, board fees and continuing education
- Practice management software and the clinical or case systems
- Equipment, and the financing that bought it
- Staff wages, benefits and the retirement plan
- Professional association dues
- Referral and marketing spend that complies with your board's rules
- Office lease, build-out and the leasehold improvements
The part that costs money
Your salary is the most examined number on your return
If the practice is an S corporation, the split between what you pay yourself as salary and what you take as distribution is the item the IRS looks at hardest, and the one most practices have never documented. The instinct is to pay yourself less. That is often wrong, because your salary is also the base your retirement plan is built on — cut it and the plan contribution falls with it. We model both sides. The answer is frequently to pay yourself more and fund the plan, and the tax comes out close to a wash while you bank the difference.
Other trades
- Construction and the trades
- Restaurants and food service
- Property management and real estate
- Dealers and vehicle sales
- Freight, logistics and distribution
- 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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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.