2018 Last-Minute Year-End General Business Deductions 2

2. Stop Billing Customers, Clients, and Patients

Here is one rock-solid, time-tested, easy strategy to reduce your taxable income for this year: Stop billing your customers, clients, and patients until after December 31, 2018. (We assume here that you or your corporation is on a cash basis and operates on the calendar year.)

Customers, clients, patients, and insurance companies generally don’t pay until billed. Not billing customers and patients is a time-tested tax-planning strategy that business owners have used successfully for years.

Example. Jim Schafback, a dentist, usually bills his patients and the insurance companies at the end of each week; however, in December, he sends no bills. Instead, he gathers up those bills and mails them the first week of January. Presto! He just postponed paying taxes on his December 2018 income by moving that income to 2019.