If you’re a freelancer or self-employed and you have to file quarterly taxes, Jody says that deducting your ordinary and necessary business expenses is a great way to cut your tax bill down. So if you’re a writer, for example, these might include any subscriptions you need for work, your internet service, and any new equipment you bought, like a work-only laptop. Or let’s say you drive for a rideshare service. You could deduct things like gas for the miles driven while working, amenities like bottled water, and so on. Not sure which expenses count?
Jody says, “If you go to the IRS website, there’s a ton of publications that tell you exactly what they are. You can actually go pull the audit guides to see what gets allowed and what doesn’t get allowed in ordinary and necessary business expenses.“
To make this process smoother when it comes time to file, she says, “The easiest way to do it is open yourself a bank account and only run business expenses through it, so at the end of the year you don’t have to figure out what you spent.”
Keeping separate accounts can also be really helpful if you happen to get audited (yikes!). Being able to easily point to all your business transactions is so much less stressful than combing through your personal accounts trying to figure out what the heck you did.
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/meganeliscomb/tax-tips-bigger-refund