Q. I’ve donated a lot of clothing and house stuff to charities this year. What’s the best way to value them for deductions, and what red flags should I watch for?
Q. As a sole proprietor, it is my understanding that the “advisory fees” of my managed portfolio are deductible expenses on my year-end tax return as bank fees. This makes these high fees of an advised account much more palatable to me, though I wonder about indexing in retirement, which I am about five to 10 years away from.
Q. My wife and I own a small business, and our accountant says we can deduct when we go to dinner together because we talk about work a lot. Isn’t that a red flag for the IRS?
By Barry S. Kleiman, CPA, Untracht Early LLC
There are many tax deductions people can take, some less obvious than others. While you can’t claim the family pet as a dependent, did you know that expenses for the care of a service dog qualify for the medical deduction? We’ve partnered with the NJ Society of CPA’s to examine some other not-so-obvious tax deductions: