Whether you’re planning to claim charitable deductions on your tax return or make donations this year, be sure you know how much you’re allowed to deduct. Your deduction depends on more than just the actual amount you donate.

What You Give

Among the biggest factors affecting your deduction is what you give. For example:

• Cash or ordinary-income property. You may deduct the amount of gifts made by check, credit card, or payroll deduction. For stocks and bonds held one year or less, inventory, and property subject to depreciation recapture, you generally may deduct only the lesser of fair market value or your tax basis.
• Long-term capital gains property. You may deduct the current fair market value of appreciated stocks and bonds held for more than one year.
• Tangible personal property. Your deduction depends on the situation. If the property isn’t related to the charity’s tax-exempt function (such as a painting donated for a charity auction), your deduction is limited to your basis. But if the property is related to the charity’s tax-exempt function (such as a painting donated to a museum for its collection), you can deduct the fair market value.
• Vehicle. Unless the vehicle is being used by the charity, you generally may deduct only the amount the charity receives when it sells the vehicle.
• Use of property or provision of services. Examples include use of a vacation home and a loan of artwork. Generally, you receive no deduction because it isn’t considered a completed gift. When providing services, you may deduct only your out-of-pocket expenses, not the fair market value of your services. You can deduct 14 cents per charitable mile driven.

Other Factors

First, you’ll benefit from the charitable deduction only if you itemize deductions rather than claim the standard deduction. Also, your annual charitable deductions may be reduced if they exceed certain income-based limits.

In addition, your deduction generally must be reduced by the value of any benefit received from the charity. Finally, various substantiation requirements apply, and the charity must be eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions.

Planning Ahead

For 2018 through 2025, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act nearly doubles the standard deduction ― plus, it limits or eliminates some common itemized deductions. As a result, you may no longer have enough itemized deductions to exceed the standard deduction, in which case your charitable donations won’t save you tax.

You might be able to preserve your charitable deduction by “bunching” donations into alternating years, so that you’ll exceed the standard deduction and can claim a charitable deduction (and other itemized deductions) every other year.

The Years Ahead

Your charitable giving strategy may need to change in light of tax law reform or other factors. Let us know if you have questions about how much you can deduct on your 2018 return or what’s best to do in the years ahead.

Repairs to tangible property, such as buildings, machinery, equipment or vehicles, can provide businesses a valuable current tax deduction — as long as the so-called repairs weren’t actually “improvements.”

The costs of incidental repairs and maintenance can be immediately expensed and deducted on the current year’s income tax return. But costs incurred to improve tangible property must be capitalized and recovered through depreciation.

Betterment, Restoration or Adaptation

Generally, a cost must be depreciated if it results in an improvement to a building structure, or any of its building systems (for example, the plumbing or electrical system), or to other tangible property. An improvement occurs if there was a betterment, restoration or adaptation of the unit of property.

Under the “betterment test,” you generally must depreciate amounts paid for work that is reasonably expected to materially increase the productivity, efficiency, strength, quality or output of a unit of property or that is a material addition to a unit of property.

Under the “restoration test,” you generally must depreciate amounts paid to replace a part (or combination of parts) that is a major component or a significant portion of the physical structure of a unit of property.

Under the “adaptation test,” you generally must depreciate amounts paid to adapt a unit of property to a new or different use — one that isn’t consistent with your ordinary use of the unit of property at the time you originally placed it in service.

Safe Harbors

A couple of IRS safe harbors can help distinguish between repairs and improvements:

1.      Routine maintenance safe harbor. Recurring activities dedicated to keeping property in efficient operating condition can be expensed. These are activities that your business reasonably expects to perform more than once during the property’s “class life,” as defined by the IRS.

Amounts incurred for activities outside the safe harbor don’t necessarily have to be depreciated, though. These amounts are subject to analysis under the general rules for improvements.

2.      Small business safe harbor. For buildings that initially cost $1 million or less, qualified small businesses may elect to deduct the lesser of $10,000 or 2% of the unadjusted basis of the property for repairs, maintenance, improvements and similar activities each year. A qualified small business is generally one with gross receipts of $10 million or less.

Learn More

To learn more about these safe harbors and other ways to maximize your tangible property deductions, contact us or complete this from and we’ll contact you.

The TCJA created a new deduction for small business owners who operate pass-through entities. That includes domestic companies operated as sole proprietorships or through S corporations, partnerships, certain LLCs, trusts, and estates. Income from such entities may allow business owners to deduct 20% of their qualified business income (QBI).

On the surface, the deduction may seem straightforward.

Example 1: Laurie Wilson runs her website design company as a sole proprietorship. In 2019, her net income from this business is $100,000. Laurie can take a $20,000 (20% of $100,000) QBI deduction on her 2019 tax return.

However, some business owners may find taking the QBI deduction more challenging.

Learning the Limits

The QBI deduction may be subject to limitation if the taxpayer’s QBI is from a trade or business that pays W-2 wages to employees or has certain qualified property. In addition, the deduction may be limited if the trade or business is one of certain specified service trades or businesses.

Both limitations apply only to taxpayers with taxable income over certain thresholds, which are adjusted annually for inflation. For 2019, the taxable income thresholds are $321,400 for married couples filing joint returns, $160,725 for married individuals filing separately, and $160,700 for single taxpayers as well as heads of household.

Taxpayers who have taxable income above those thresholds may find their QBI deduction reduced or eliminated altogether. In those situations, it may pay to contribute to retirement plans, bringing taxable income below the relevant threshold.

Example 2: Jerry Nolan is the 100% owner of an S corporation. In 2019, Jerry and his wife Marie expect to have taxable income of $350,000. If either or both spouses can contribute a total of $30,000 to a pretax retirement plan, that will bring their taxable income below the $321,400 threshold, helping them to get a full QBI deduction.

Business owners who already have a defined contribution plan in place, for instance, could explore setting up a defined benefit plan, as well. Our office can help you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of this strategy.

From More to Lesser

Even for business owners under the taxable income thresholds, a 20% QBI deduction might not be available. That’s because the QBI deduction is the lesser of 20% of QBI or 20% of taxable income less net capital gain.

Example 3: Steve Thomas has $200,000 of QBI from his consulting firm, which he operates as a sole proprietorship. After taking various deductions (self-employment tax, retirement plan contributions, itemized deductions), Steve winds up with $140,000 of taxable income this year. He has no capital gains for the year.

In this situation, Steve’s taxable income ($140,000) is less than his QBI ($200,000), so Steve’s QBI deduction would be only $28,000: 20% of $140,000.

If Steve can raise his taxable income over $200,000, he could claim a $40,000 QBI deduction. Assume that a $60,000 Roth IRA conversion would add $60,000 to Steve’s taxable income, to just over $200,000. Then Steve’s $200,000 QBI would be the lesser number, and he could take a full $40,000 QBI deduction: 20% of $200,000.

It’s true that a Roth IRA conversion would add to Steve’s tax bill for the year, but the added QBI deduction would be an offset. Once all the numbers are crunched, this could be a relatively low-tax way to move money into a Roth IRA, from which all distributions can be untaxed, after five years and age 59½.

Earnings Don’t Count

Business owners should be aware that QBI is meant to be net business income, after all claimed business deductions have been taken. Thus, the QBI rules exclude salaries to S corporation shareholders and guaranteed payments to LLC members. Those amounts are not QBI, so they don’t merit a 20% deduction.

Some S corporation owners may be tempted to lowball salaries and, thus, increase QBI. However, the tax code requires reasonable compensation for owner-employees. A business owner’s efforts to take a reduced salary in order to increase QBI may lead to an IRS audit, recasting net business income as earnings, and perhaps generating steep penalties.

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