2018 Last-Minute Year-End General Business Deductions 5

5. Don’t Assume You Are Taking Too Many Deductions

If your business deductions exceed your business income, you have a tax loss for the year. With a few modifications to the loss, tax law calls this a “net operating loss,” or NOL.

If you are just starting your business, you could very possibly have an NOL. You could have a loss year even with an ongoing successful business.

You used to be able to carry back your NOL two years and get immediate tax refunds from prior years; however, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated this provision.6 Now, you can only carry your NOL forward, and it can only offset up to 80 percent of your taxable income in any one future year.

Don’t worry—you can still get immediate use of your business loss in 2018 by using the strategies outlined in Five Strategies for Your Business Losses after Tax Reform. But to make those strategies work, you’ll need to take action before December 31.

What does this all mean? You should never stop documenting your deductions, and you should always claim all your rightful deductions. We have spoken with far too many business owners, especially new owners, who don’t claim all their deductions when those deductions would produce a tax loss.