Tax minimization is a controversial topic, often confused with tax avoidance. When you talk about minimizing taxes, most people think you are trying to evade taxation, which is illegal. This misconception is one of the primary reasons most businesses cannot reduce their tax burden, considering it is unlawful. Contrary to popular belief, lowering taxes is illegal and an acceptable practice within the taxation world. It is vital for any business in today’s world to have a tax minimization strategy in place using perfectly legal methods. Suppose you are looking to reduce your tax burden through legitimate means. In that case, it is essential for you first to understand the distinction between tax evasion and tax minimization to avoid any mishaps.
What Does Tax Minimization Mean?
Tax minimization refers to using various resources and means to reduce the amount of tax a business pays. Use tax depreciation effectively by planning for taxation in advance. For instance, if you have unearned income showing in your income statement for this year while the payment will be received next year, it makes sense to mention the amount under a different tab, such as account receivables, etc. You can significantly reduce your tax burden by simply renaming and managing your finances.
What are the Two Basic Ways Tax Minimization Works?
Broadly, there are two main ways tax minimization works. Many people wonder how they can legally avoid paying taxes or reduce the amount of taxes they pay. Again, we cannot stress enough the term “legally.” Two primary ways to reduce their tax burden are tax mitigation and finding loopholes in the law. The latter sounds unethical, so let’s leave that to the big fish. For now, let’s focus on tax mitigation and how you can use it to reduce the taxes you pay.
How Can You Minimize Your Tax Burden?
There are numerous ways businesses can reduce their tax burden. Most of these ways revolve around identifying presently occurring expenses and subtracting the ones that will incur later on. By doing this, you can reduce some of the burden of your taxable income from your income statement. Here are some more strategies to reduce your tax burden:
Depreciate Your Assets Regularly
Depreciation is the process of evaluating an asset’s current value and life expectancy concerning its market worth. When you depreciate your assets, you maintain your taxable depreciation expense. However, not many companies perform their depreciation yearly or during the taxation period. The best way is to use an accelerated depreciation process to calculate your assets’ depreciation before the taxation season.
Increase Your Capitalization Limit
Another way to reduce your overall taxable income is to buy assets recognized as fixed assets by the law. When you put a higher threshold for the amount reserved for purchasing fixed assets, you use a part of your income as an expense. If you reduce the overall taxable income, your income tax will diminish, too.
Reduce Your Inventory
A common practice for most businesses is reducing the overall inventory size by the end of the fiscal year. It would be best to sell all the unsold items in your inventory before the year-end. When you do this, the cost of these items will equal the cost of goods sold. This way, you reduce your overall taxable income.
Reduce Account Receivables
Again, another common practice most companies adopt is writing off their account receivables before the year-end. If you have not collected the income, showing it as income will only increase your tax amount. Why show it at all?
Most companies worldwide use these basic accounting strategies to reduce their overall taxable income, which is illegal. You can reduce your taxable income by simply managing and balancing your accounts. Why would that be considered unethical or unlawful?
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