Tax prep and organization with rewards

[Chamberpains]

I got to reading Rawze's technical guide on simple tax advice (referenced here ). I figured I'd share a really simple way that I keep all my purchases organized and make a little money along the way.

Having a good Visa debit or credit debit card and using it through your business account which is completely separate from your personal life and using it on every single purchase you make is an easy way to do your taxes at the end of the year.

I use both visa and debit for discounts and rewards throughout the year. I use debit for fuel discounts at places that have cash prices for fuel. Debit is the equivalent of cash. I also use the debit ATM withdrawals to make any "cash" purchases I need to make. It's not illegal to use cash to purchase things. But it needs to be well-documented for the audit man to accept it as a deduction. I avoid cash transactions anytime I can. But sometimes a good cash deal is just hard to pass up. I simply withdrawal the amount of cash I need then edit the withdrawal in the bank or card website with an appropriate notation of where the cash went.

Then I have a Visa card that gives rewards for every dollar I spend. I get a nice chunk of change given to me at the end of the year on everything I had to buy anyway. Just make sure you pay it off before it accrues interest. I pay mine off every week. Just add up all the expenses that you put on the credit card and transfer that much money from your working account onto the card. If it's a good card they should not hit you for any interest until an amount sits on a card for over a month.

Back to doing taxes with the debit and credit card. Every purchase can be edited into a tax category usually through the cards website. Then at the end of the year you can simply print out all the categories and their amounts and that is your entire Schedule C tax form. It's much like Rawze's plastic bag and bucket filled with receipts. My way of doing things won't get me away from Rawze's fantastic way of keeping physical receipts organized. But I can at least cleanly and neatly file my taxes in under an hour. And hold off organizing the receipts until I feel like doing them. I hate paperwork that much that I needed in small doses.

I've had two tax inquiries performed (they were not full tax audits) but all I did was print off and sent in my Visa and debit statements in accordance with what section they had a question about minus any deposits or any other categories that they didn't ask about. I'm a firm believer to NEVER give more information than is needed to answer the specific questions of any government establishment. This seem to satisfy them because I've never heard from them after that.

I'd love to hear any problems that anyone sees with my way of doing this and also if anyone else has any simple shortcuts and making rewards and money through normal ways of doing business.