financial advisor

BandB said:

Our CPA says, "You sure you don't want to take a business deduction for any of their use?" I repeat, "No, they're pleasure boats, not business. When we have employees aboard there is no business reason. In fact we have a rule against discussing business."

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Same here.

Writing off a boat is a sure way to get audited.

Don't forget to line up a lawyer. You will want to look into laws, permits, regs etc. A good corporate lawyer in your area should work.

Lollygag1 said:

Asking financial advice from boaters. What could go wrong.

First thing my financial advisor said to me was to sell the boat, first this I said after was he was fired.

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Many entrepreneur and small business owners are boaters.

Gives them the freedom to boat when they want and for longer period than 2 week vacations.

And they tend to be risk takers.

Financial advisors, the investment types, would rather have your money to invest than you tying up your money in a boat. Reduces their commission and/or fee opportunity.

Anyone who wants to start a business and do so the right way has my full support. Good luck.

While I might call my boat the floating office and work from there frequently in the summer, I would never consider trying to write it off.

syjos said:

Same here.

Writing off a boat is a sure way to get audited.

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Thing is audits don't scare me and it would be easy for our CPA to defend the deduction by pointing out that all those with us often are employees. However, factually, it's not a legitimate business expense, and if I was handling the audit, I wouldn't be able to defend it. I have handled our only audit rather than having our CPA do so.

Only been audited personally once and our businesses never. However, when I worked for a company, we had a perpetual audit for a long time there based on our size. Even had an office set up for them in our office. Over 20 years, the only changes were $240 a year in deductions for two years. Finally they figured out they were wasting a lot of effort and went to every two or three years.

I've never been audited but have received IRS inquiries regarding home office deduction before home office deductions were recognized.

I avoid audits, not because I'm making questionable deductions, but to avoid the time, expense and frustration dealing with IRS bureaucrats.

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