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We ended last time with the suggestion that you get a tax professional who knows the trucking industry to do your taxes at the end of the year and I want to start this month with that same idea in mind

 

So you've got your receipts and your P&L, and you're ready to visit the accountant. What do you need to take to him? The best thing you can bring him is a Profit & Loss Report, and a report of your days on the road for the year, which is backed up by your Log Books. The P&L report, which is a standard report in any computer accounting package, will detail your income and expenses and then list your profit or loss at the bottom of the page. If you track your expenses as you go along during the year you'll be able to print out this report at any time to tell you how you're doing, and you'll be able to provide it to your tax preparer at tax time.  If you're an owner/operator you'll also need to provide your tax preparer details on your truck purchase and payments so that he'll be able to depreciate your truck correctly. Those 2 pieces of information are all you need to get your taxes done and to get them done cost effectively. If you hand your tax preparer a bag full of receipts he'll still be able to get your taxes done, but you'll be paying him for hours of sorting and entering those receipts in order to be able to generate a P&L Report for you.

 

You will need to keep your receipts, and if you can keep them organized by month or type so much the better, but this is not essential. If you do have an audit you will need to have the receipts, but you can take them all in a paper bag if you want, as long as they're all there. You will also want to keep your log books for several years as they are your "receipts" for the Per Diem allowance that you take on your taxes. What I always did was put all the receipts and my log books for the year in a box along with my P&L and a copy of my taxes for the year, mark the year on the outside of the box and then put it away. There are differing opinions on how long you need to keep them, but I would always keep them at least 7 years before burning them. With identity theft so rampant I would never throw anything away - either burn it or shred it to protect the privacy of your data.

 

Take a few minutes at the end of each day to enter your expenses for the day and file away your receipts for everything you spend and you will cut your taxes.