Deducting Points On Home Refinances

Deduction of Refinance Points

Any points that you pay in the refinancing of your residence are tax deductible over the length of the loan in question. The deduction is allowable only if the residence is your primary home and the new mortgage replaces a previous one and/or is used to improve the residence. To the extent that money is taken out to pay off credit cards and non-residence costs, the points may not be used as a tax deduction.

Big Deductions By Refinancing Twice

If you refinanced your primary residence twice during 2004, you may be in for a very nice surprise. A significant tax deduction can be created when you refinance twice in one year. If you refinance a mortgage, you accelerate the deductible amount of points from the first mortgage and may claim the points from the first mortgage all at once.

As an example, assume that I refinanced my home in January 2004 and paid $3,000 in points. Interest rates continued to drop through 2004 and I then decided to refinance again in August. Because I paid off the original loan with the refinance, I am able to accelerate the value of the points of the January loan.

So, what tax deductions have I created for my 2004 filing period? Initially, I am going to deduct a percentage of the points off of my latest refinance. The deduction will amount to the total amount of points paid divided by the total months of the loan. This will not be a big deduction, but every little bit helps.

In addition to this amount, however, I will also deduct the full $3,000 in points that I paid on my January 2004 refinance! I am able to claim this deduction because I "accelerated" the deductibility of the points by paying of January mortgage with the August refinance.

By refinancing twice, I get a lower interest rate and a healthy tax deduction. Ah, the value of owning a home.

How Likely Are You To Be Audited?

Statistics for Individuals

Unfortunately, the IRS increased its rate of auditing individuals in 2004 when compared to 2005. The increase was approximately 14%, but still constituted only 6.5 audits for every 1,000 taxpayers. Put another way, the risk of being audited on your personal return is less than 1 in 100.

In regard to the above numbers, it is important to note that the IRS pursued a large number of "correspondence audits" instead of face?to?face meetings. As the name suggests, these audits consists of correspondence being sent from the IRS to a taxpayer regarding a contested issue. The taxpayer can respond to the audit or pay the accessed amount depending upon the request of the IRS.

Favorable Audit News For Businesses

The audit rate for businesses is much lower than those for individuals. In 2004, the IRS audited roughly 2.2 out of every 1,000 businesses. In 2005, this rate dropped slightly to 2.1 out of every 1,000 businesses.

The IRS has attributed the decline in business audits to the "explosive growth" in tax shelters, which requires the Agency to pursue more expensive and time consuming audits due to the complexities involved in the plans. The Agency reported pursuing more than 2,200 such shelters in 2004, which the audits taking an average of 7 1/2 months longer than normal corporate audits.

Audit Risk

Whether you are a business or individual taxpayer, your risk of being audited is very low. The nominal risk, however, is not a license to pursue frivolous deductible claims on your returns. As long as you stick to valid deductions, you should be able to sleep without much concern.

Understanding Marketing Tax Deductions

Marketing is a necessary expense in running practically any business and the IRS acknowledges as much. You may run advertisements on or in the Internet, radio, television, magazines, newspapers and other media to sell your products or services. You should be deducting all of the associated costs on your tax returns.

Ordinary Marketing Expenses

Marketing costs must be "ordinary and necessary" business expenses in order to be deductible. Put in layman's terms, you marketing must be reasonably related to the promotion of your business and the expense amount must be a reasonable amount.

Deductible Marketing Expenses

Common deductible marketing expenses include the costs associated with the following items:
A. Yellow Page Advertisements,
B. Business Cards,
C. Advertisements in print media such as newspapers,
D. Telemarketing,
E. Business Cards,
F. Web site costs including creation and maintenance,
G. Costs for Advertisements on the Internet,
H. Billboards, and
I. Graphic design costs.

Goodwill Marketing For Your Business

Marketing that is intended to portray your business positively can be deducted. Such marketing creates a long-term potential for business and, thus, falls within the ordinary and normal requirements of the tax code. Examples of such marketing include:

A. Sponsoring local youth sports teams,
B. Distributing samples of your business product, and
C. Costs associated with prizes offered by your business in a contest.

As long as your marketing expenses can be reasonably related to the promotion of your business, you should be deducting said expenses from your gross revenues. If you failed to claim any such expenses on your tax returns, your probably overpaid your taxes.