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Another thing you can consider is starting your own business. My husband is a computer tech, and if there's something that's almost as bad as being a doctor, its a computer tech. Everyone and their mother wants him to fix their machines. So we decided that he would start charging and now we make a small amount of money every year this way. Typically, we were paying taxes the income (we ran it as a business that wasn't incorporated or anything, just a sole proprietorship, so the taxes were just filed on an extra Schedule on our personal taxes) as part of our annual income. But the business does have a policy (because I wrote it) that it covers all out of pocket medical expenses for the employees (my husband and myself). All major companies have some sort of health expenses for its employees and believe me, it writes off all these as business operating expenses. So...this year we will have a big loss for our business which is ALL tax deductible - without having to hit the 7.5% minimum.
If you have a skill that you can sell (not a hobby), it may be worth taking the time to set this up. We just run the business with a "DBA" (doing business as) which means that my husband IS the business and vice versa. We don't have legal protections if he is sued, but it is very easy to register for a DBA with your local government and then open a business bank account. It will save us many thousands of dollars this year and is definitely worth the day or two of hassle to set up.
Msred
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