anyone ever written their tank off?

[mthedude]

My wife is starting an in home daycare and I have been wanting to upgrade my tank for quite some time now. I'm thinking I may be able to write it off as an "educational expense" for the daycare and be able to get what I really want and continue to write it off with the added expense of supplies, etc.

Anyone ever tried this or have any advice?

 

[Husky_1]

I am not a tax person, but if it is an expense incurred by the business I do not see what the issue is. Make sure that in addition to writing it off, you also have to include the expenditures on your balance sheets and income statements. Also, would you use some kind of depreciation model like MACRS, straightline etc etc. etc.

All in all, I would suggest you pay for someones help when it comes to taxes and laws, because you will get a lot of opinions on here, but opinions are like *5s4o7es, everyone has one and most stink.

 

[AndyB4784]

i'm just finishing up my accounting major and you prob won't be able to write this off because it is not an "ordinary or necessary" expense.

 

[mthedude]

I'm looking for a CPA currently. I would think if we can show that it's used daily for learning, etc we should be able to get a nice little deduction but who knows?

 

[mthedude]

talked to my CPA last night and the fish tank can be written off as an educational use as long as we can show proof that the day-care uses it daily. So, I'm going to have my wife feed the fish daily, keep a log of it and write it off at the end of the year.

Now I just have to decide what my new setup will be.

 

[Icehockey_whino]

I have written my tank off to my office. My CPA says that it is okay (tank is at my office) I guess if they get picky, they would say that you can't... but thats the IRS for you. :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[mthedude]

the only thing they can do is not let me write 100% of it off, which I can understand since the day-care is only going to be in my home part of the day so I'm assuming I'll get to write about 45% of it off, which is still pretty nice.

 

[Holmie_D_Klown]

I would have a bulletin board with some fish pictures, names of fish, corals, etc. If you make it an educational experience why would that be any different than writing off paper, writing intruments, etc? I think you should be able to write off 100% of it, as well as the on-going expenses.

 

[mthedude]

that's my goal, to make it 100% write off. I guess I get to write off a printer 100% so why not a fish tank? I'm meeting w/my CPA again on Thursday, I'll ask him. I wonder if the IRS knows what a Euro-Reef skimmer, 250w MH's and 125RR mean?

 

[godoggo]

Where you run-into trouble is when your home based businnes continues to "lose" money year after year - it's a real red flag for the IRS