Any other self-employed/small business owners who

[GreenPartyVoter]

are set to be royally screwed by the tax deform bill if you can't claim write-offs?

Add to that two college-aged kids, reliance upon Obamacare for what is now a junk catastrophic policy with skyrocketing premiums and a 15K deductible, and 2 mortgages thanks to emergency surgery before my Obamacare coverage was secured, we are set to be absolutely destroyed!!

I may personally go to Rep Bruce Poliquin's home and just lie in his yard sobbing and retching so he knows how I feel about this.

[MontanaMama]

1. We're self employed small business owners.

I'm scared to death how this tax law will all pan out for us. I am still not clear on what we can and can't write off in the new bill. We employ 5 people all younger that we are by 25 years...with families. I want to keep providing them with a great job with the benefits they are accustomed to and it isn't looking good.

[better]

4. The bill isn't designed to screw you, it's designed to screw your employees.

Obviously, as a business owner, it will now be solely at your discretion, if the bill is signed into law, to make sure your employees don't get screwed over by any uncompensated expenses that they will no longer be able to deduct, by simply making sure that any expenses they incur are in fact compensated. And unlike your employees, you can deduct those expenses.

But this also makes me wonder...

Could conscientious small business owners do things like set up employee benefit funds under any of the provisions that are now available only to businesses, to offset the things employees can no longer take advantage of? For example, can business owners in high tax areas maintain something like an "employee retention program" as part of the benefits package, specifically designed to offset the limitations of SALT deductions suffered by wage earners?

It would be very interesting to see creative corporations and small businesses step up and find ways to use the gifts this tax bill gives them to make their employees whole, and if that is indeed possible, it could also conceivably end up being a huge competitive advantage. Would your 5 employees rather work for a company that uses the advantage it's afforded to protect them, or one that doesn't offer those benefits? I suspect we know the answer.

[MontanaMama]

7. We offer health insurance and

a company matched 401K among other things. If the deductions that we are currently taking for those disappear that'll be a huge hit to our bottom line. We've always had to be creative with benefits for employees over the years. Different bennies speak to different people. Flex time, vacation time, bringing their dog to work....lots of little things that add up to making folks happy and comfortable on the job. Happy employees are good for everyone, owners and customers alike. In our experience, local, state and federal government has never made things easy for small business. Their talk about working for "main street" businesses is a crock IMO.

[better]

8. To be clear, I do not mean to imply that you do any less than you should

But as I understand it, none of the deductions you are able to take as a business owner are expected to disappear.
I'm just wondering if business owners can actually use the tax code to offset the deductions that their employees are no longer able to take. I don't know if they can, but it's an intriguing idea.

[MontanaMama]

11. I got you.

And, I will ask my accountant those same questions. Good thoughts!

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. I hope you can make it work!

[RandomAccess]

2. I'm just in the process of launching my own small

(VERY small) business. I'm sick.

I don't know how they can get away with this. I'm hoping it won't survive reconciliation. Does the bill have to be voted on again after reconciliation, does anyone know?

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. Good luck with your business!

Here's hoping the bill dies somehow in reconciliation!

[RandomAccess]

21. Thank you!

[Ms. Toad]

3. The write-off changes are primarily to unreimbursed EMPLOYEE business expenses

As a business owner, you don't have unreimbursed business expenses. Your business deducts it's expenses on schedule C, not schedule A.

Schedule A deductions are the ones that were dramatically changed.

[dembotoz]

10. Thanks I was wondering

Saw a short presentation by a CPA re the house bill. Room full of small independent like myself. Conclusion...no benefit

[Ms. Toad]

12. Definitely no benefit -

but not a the kind of game-changer for small businesses than requiring small businesses to pay taxes on gross profits woudl be.

[Pachamama]

5. Yes... And a Pachababy about to go off to College, the Pachapapa and I are divorcing & I need health

....insurance (with a few serious pre-existing conditions)....

I don't even know where to begin in describing that what this tax rape bill means to me....

My soon to be ex is now discussing that the alimony payment will have to be lower to me since he can't write it off... Because of my pre-existing conditions, the premiums I am looking at having to pay now that I won't be on husbands employers insurance (assuming that in future I can even get insured), a kid going off to college, and now finding out that the little income I can get as self employed will no longer be able to have many write-offs I counted on?

I had even been thinking of going back and getting a further degree in order to increase my ability to find work in the workplace....the tuition would have previously been tax deductible....not any longer...

My husband and I are literally trying to "rush" a divorce in the next several weeks in order to have the divorce judgement complete before Dec. 31st, 2017 so that we qualify before the new rule is implemented.....our lawyers said they are inundated with tons of people calling in and needed to make this deadline....

And as I seriously consider just quitting and moving full time overseas to Germany to live there with family and try to plan my retirement and future there , I also found out that I can't even write-off my moving my household....

I will join you on your Representative's yard and every other member of Congress that voted for this Tax Rape Bill....

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. I am so sorry for everything your family is going through. This

bill looks to hit you all hard in so many ways.

[Ms. Toad]

18. The deadline is December 31, 2018 for tax matters.

Nothing changes for this year unless you are divorced by December 31, 2017 - and then it only changes BECAUSE OF the divorce (not the tax code).

Next year, as long as you are divorced before December 31, 2018 - you're treated as divorced for the entire year - so there's no reason to rush a divorce because of the bill just passed, unless there are tax advantages under the current tax plan to being divorced for 2017.

[MineralMan]

6. This is not going to affect small, owner-operated, single person businesses

very much at all. I haven't looked at whether it will affect charging off business use of a home, but I never bother with that anyhow, since it's too hard to calculate and doesn't amount to much in my business or my wife's. We just sit at our desks at home. All other business expenses are entered on our Schedule Cs. I have one. My wife has two. Then, bottom lines there are carried over to the Form 1040 and SE.

Right now, it's all pretty unclear, really, what impact this will have one one-person, no-employee businesses like ours. A lot will depend on what percentage of the self-employment tax gets deducted in the 1040. Also, there is a health insurance deduction that may be affected, but I haven't looked at that yet, either.

Until this is reconciled or fails, I'm not going to bother looking at impact on us. I have work to do, thank goodness.

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. Thanks for the schedule clarification! Still a bad bill in

so many ways for my own family, and clearly not good for employees, who are somehow supposed to realize magic money in their paychecks.

[MineralMan]

19. It's still going to be a while before

We know what impacts it will have for specific groups. Reconciliation may change any of it significantly.

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. True

[Vinca]

9. Yes. Both my husband and I are self-employed and work out of home offices.

It sounds like we're amongst the royally screwed.

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. Hang in there and keep calling your Congress critters!

[fescuerescue]

22. I'm self employed but all my expenses go on Schedule C

Not schedule A. Schedule A is the one being trimmed down tremendously.

So far from what I can tell, my legitimate business expenses are not changed.

If it turns out to not the case, I'll convert to an S-Corp. (In fact I might do that anyway since it looks like S-Corps will be getting favorable treatment)