The year has come to an end and you must be worried about the forthcoming tax issues. Understandably you want to save up on taxes. But you are not equipped with the best strategies to slash the taxes. You could think of your own way of saving up on taxes, but here are 3 ways in which you can let less amount of your precious money to slip away as taxes. These are particularly effective for owners of small businesses.

Buy A Huge Sports Utility Vehicle

This might not appear very palatable for you, but buying a Sports Utility Vehicle can actually help you in saving up on taxes. If you have a lot of business transportation you can always buy this vehicle. You can use it. If its cost and maintenance were the only issues of concern to you, here’s some good news for you. SUV’s used about 50 % for business purposes are eligible for depreciation of $25,000. To get this depreciation, you should buy a vehicle with a GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating) of more than 6000 pounds. The GVWR of a vehicle is written on the driver’s door.  Read it up and then select a vehicle that meets the criterion. That must be a really heavy vehicle now, but the depreciation for smaller and lighter vehicles is much less.

To save up on taxes, though this option looks good, don’t buy a huge SUV with the sole purpose of saving up on taxes if it really has no utility for you or if you think you can’t maintain it. After all, even if you don’t use a vehicle you should be able to maintain it in good condition so that it fetches you a good resale value.

Business Equipment and Software

The Section 179 depreciation is not only on SUV’s but also on business equipment and software. You get$250,000 depreciation on them. You surely can buy some new computers, office furniture and software isn’t it? These, as a purchase option, are better than the SUV because there are more chances of their being put to some use. After all, computer machines and software become outdated quite often and you’ve got to keep replacing them with new material.

You get the $ 250,000 depreciation on heavy pick up vans too which do not officially qualify as SUVs.

Avail 50 Year Bonus Depreciation On

You can avail 50 year bonus depreciation on new office equipment according to the Section 179. If you got some parts of your office renovated, you could avail the bonus depreciation on that too. But not all real estate works qualify for that. Don’t wait till next year for availing these depreciations because the rules may change.

Delay Income and Accelerate Deductible Expenditures

If you are a running a sole proprietorship business, your income gets reflected in Form 1040. You can defer your income till next year and increase your deductible expenditures this year to be in the low tax category.

Look For Net Operating Loss Carryback

The first three strategies mentioned here are not only for availing the depreciations of Section 179 but also for showing a Net Operation Loss (NOL) for up to 5 years backwards and recovering any high amounts taxes that you might have paid earlier.