Creytix Tax is decision support for you and a licensed professional. It is not a CPA, enrolled agent, attorney, or tax-return preparer. Outputs are not legal, tax, or accounting advice. Do not file, elect, form, or pay from these pages without professional review.
Write-offs
Strategies with sources. Not a shopping list.
Pub 535, Topics 509 and 510, and Pub 463 explain the buckets. Creytix Tax will not tell you a dollar to deduct, pick a Tesla, or hire your kids to zero the tax. A CPA maps your books onto the return.
Ordinary and necessary business expenses
IRC §162 / Pub 535: a business expense must be ordinary and necessary in that trade. That is a facts test, not a shopping list.
The IRS describes deductible business expenses as ordinary (common and accepted in your industry) and necessary (helpful and appropriate). Helpful does not mean required.
Personal living costs stay personal. Mixing a personal card with company spend is how deductions get disallowed and how piercing facts accumulate.
Creytix Tax will not tell you a dollar amount to deduct. Keep receipts, a business purpose, and the books. A CPA maps that onto the return.
- Do not treat a blog 'write-off list' as authority.
- Do not invent a percentage of revenue that is 'safe' to deduct.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Business use of home
Topic 509: exclusive and regular use for business, with a principal-place or meeting-clients test. Simplified and actual methods exist.
A spare bedroom that is also the guest room usually fails exclusive use. A dedicated office that is used regularly for the business is the usual starting point.
Employees have a different (narrower) home-office rule than self-employed owners. S-corp shareholders who take a home-office reimbursement typically need an accountable plan — that is CPA work, not a quiz result.
This site does not compute square-footage or the simplified method.
- Do not deduct the entire house because a laptop is on the kitchen table.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Business use of a car
Topic 510 and Pub 463: standard mileage or actual expenses, plus a mileage log. Commuting is generally personal.
Pick a method with a CPA and stick to the substantiation that method requires. A GPS log or contemporaneous notebook beats a reconstructed year-end guess.
Luxury-auto and listed-property limits can cap depreciation. Those tables change; they do not belong as hardcoded React numbers.
Creytix Tax will not tell you to buy a specific vehicle to 'write it off.'
- No Tesla / boat / aircraft product recommendation.
- Commuting from home to a regular office is generally not a business mile.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Business meals and travel
Pub 463: business purpose, substantiation, and current meal-percentage rules. Entertainment is not the same as a meal.
A meal with a documented business purpose is different from season tickets. Pub 463 is the starting source; your CPA applies the current percentage.
Creytix Tax does not encode a meal percentage in the engine until it is locked from the current Pub 463 / IRC text for that tax year.
- Do not treat every restaurant charge as a business meal.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Startup costs vs capital vs currently deductible
Some costs to begin a business are capitalized or amortized (including IRC §195 startup). Equipment may be depreciated or expensed under other provisions.
Investigating a business you never start, opening day inventory, and a laptop used in an already-running trade are different buckets.
Bonus depreciation and §179 elections are dated, election-driven, and easy to get wrong. This catalog names the topic; it does not compute the deduction.
- Do not hardcode a bonus-depreciation percentage in the UI.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Accountable plan for reimbursements
Employee (including S-corp officer) reimbursements that follow an accountable plan are generally not wages. Non-accountable reimbursements often are.
An accountable plan needs a business connection, substantiation in a reasonable time, and return of excess advances.
S-corp owners who pay personal expenses from the company account without this paper trail create both payroll-tax and piercing problems.
- A year-end lump 'reimbursement' with no receipts is not an accountable plan.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Retirement and health (SEP, solo 401(k), QSEHRA / ICHRA)
These can be real planning tools. Contribution limits, eligibility, and plan documents are CPA and (often) TPA work.
A solo 401(k) or SEP for a profitable owner is not the same product as an employee 401(k). Deadlines differ. Employee coverage rules differ.
Health reimbursement arrangements have their own notices and eligibility. Creytix Tax will not pick a plan or a contribution amount.
- Do not promise a tax-free family payroll or a 'hire your kids to zero the tax'.
CPA required · not personalized advice
S-corp wages vs distributions
If the S election is in force, officer-shareholders who work in the business generally need W-2 wages. Distributions are not a substitute.
Reasonable compensation is documented professional judgment — role, hours, duties, geography, comparables — not a percentage of profit.
The payroll-tax delta tool on this site is directional SE vs FICA on a salary you type. It ignores federal income tax, QBI, and state tax.
- Do not use an $80k–$100k blog heuristic as the salary.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Depreciation, §179, and bonus (education)
Pub 946: cost recovery is an election with listed-property and luxury-auto limits. Tables change by year.
Placing an asset in service, choosing a method, and recapture on disposition are return-level facts.
Creytix Tax names the topic and points at Pub 946. It does not compute §179 or bonus depreciation.
- Do not hardcode a bonus-depreciation percentage in the UI.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Qualified business income (IRC §199A) — education only
The deduction depends on taxable income, specified-service rules, W-2 wages, and UBIA. Those are CPA facts.
An S-corp or partnership does not automatically get a 20% deduction. Specified-service trades and high income change the result.
This site will not compute QBI. The payroll-tax delta tool already disclaims that it ignores QBI.
- Do not advertise a guaranteed 20% QBI deduction.
CPA required · not personalized advice
What is generally not a business deduction
Personal living costs, commuting, fines, political contributions, and most entertainment stay out.
Pub 535 and the deducting-expenses page list common nondeductible items. Mixing them onto a company card does not convert them.
Fines and penalties paid to a government are a frequent miss. So is the owner's grocery bill.
- Do not treat a viral 'write-off list' as authority for a personal expense.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Advertising, software, and subscriptions
Ordinary marketing and tools used in the trade can be deductible. Personal streaming and hobbies are not.
Keep the business purpose. A CRM used to sell is different from a family Netflix login on the company card.
Prepaid multi-year software may need capitalization. That is a CPA timing call.
- Do not deduct 100% of a mixed-use personal account without an allocation method the CPA accepts.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Business interest, rent, and insurance premiums
Interest on a company obligation, rent for business space, and business insurance can be ordinary expenses when they are the company's.
Owner-home rent needs a real lease and an accountable-plan or rental analysis — not a round number journal entry.
Business-interest limitation (when it applies) is return-level. Do not hardcode a limitation percentage here.
- A personal mortgage payment from the company account is not automatically rent.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Education and training that maintains skills
Training that maintains or improves skills in the current trade can be ordinary. Qualifying for a new trade is often personal.
A course on the software you already use in the business is a different facts pattern from a degree that qualifies you for a new profession.
Creytix Tax will not decide which seminar is deductible.
- Do not deduct a personal hobby certification as a business expense.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Cell phone and internet allocation
Mixed-use utilities need a reasonable business-use method and substantiation. 100% is rarely the facts.
S-corp owners often reimburse the business-use portion through an accountable plan rather than running the personal bill through payroll incorrectly.
This site does not compute a percentage of your phone bill.
- Do not deduct the entire household internet because Slack is installed.
CPA required · not personalized advice
S-corp >2% shareholder fringe (health and similar)
Health insurance and certain fringes for >2% S-corp shareholders often run through wages, then a deduction on the shareholder return — CPA choreography.
Paying a personal health premium from the company without the wage-inclusion step is a common miss.
Creytix Tax will not compute the wage add-back.
- Do not treat an S-corp like a partnership for health-premium mechanics without a CPA.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Charitable gifts: company vs owner
A C-corp may deduct qualifying charitable contributions subject to limits. An S-corp generally passes the item to shareholders. Personal gifts are not company expenses.
Writing a check from the company for a personal pledge does not automatically make it a corporate contribution.
Creytix Tax will not compute the contribution limitation or the shareholder K-1 mapping.
- Do not treat a personal donation as a guaranteed company write-off.
CPA required · not personalized advice
Related: ordinary and necessary expenses · S-corp election tools.