Filing & Paying Business Taxes (Part 15)

Filing & Paying Business Taxes

Continued from last week

Business Income

If there is a connection between any income you receive and your business, the income is business income. A connection exists if it is clear that the payment of income would not have been made if you did not have the business. You can have business income even if you are not involved in the activity on a regular full-time basis. Income from work you do on the side in addition to your regular job can be business income. You report most business income, such as income from the sale of your products or services, on Schedule C or C-EZ. But you report the income from the sale of business assets, such as land and office buildings, on other forms instead of Schedule C or C-EZ.

Nonemployee compensation. Business income includes amounts you received in your business that were properly shown on Forms 1099-MISC. This includes amounts reported as nonemployee compensation in box 7 of the form.

Kinds of Income. You must report on your tax return all income you receive from your business unless it is excluded by law. In most cases, your business income will be in the form of cash, checks, and credit card charges. But business income can be in other forms, such as property or services. If you are a U.S. citizen who has business income from sources outside the United States (foreign income), you must report that income on your tax return unless it is exempt from tax under U.S. law. If you live outside the United States, you may be able to exclude part or all of your foreign-source business income.

Bartering for Property or Services Bartering is an exchange of property or services. You must include in your gross receipts, at the time received, the fair market value of property or services you receive in bartering. If you exchange services with another person and you both have agreed ahead of time on the value of the services, that value will be accepted as the fair market value unless the value can be shown to be otherwise.

For example, you are a self-employed lawyer. You perform legal services for a client, a small corporation. In payment for your services, you receive shares of stock in the corporation. You must include the fair market value of the shares in income.

Another example is if you are an artist and create a work of art to compensate your landlord for the rent-free use of your apartment. You must include the fair rental value of the apartment in your gross receipts. Your landlord must include the fair market value of the work of art in his or her rental income.

This column is offered as a public service with the understanding that each person's tax situation is different; and that you should consult your CPA before taking any action based upon comments made in this article. Call me and I will be happy to explain my “CPA Quality Tax Preparation at H&R Block Rates”.  I can be reached at 825-2771.

This is the final Tax Talk article for the 2007 filing season. I hope you are looking forward for the Tax Talk articles to be published next year. Thank you very much for you interest.