jneilosu
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Upload & Sell: Off
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I have my CPA, so I know my way around a bit (not a tax accountant tho, to be fair).
My suggestion? If you are established and have a fairly consistent positive income every year, there won't be any harm in taking a full sec 179 deduction on all of your equipment. Honestly, doing it this way will result in much easier tracking of records (no depreciation tables to keep up with). Even if you use turbo tax or pay an accountant, there's it's hard to argue why you wouldn't just write it all off as a sec 179 expense, and then recognize a gain on the equipment if you ever sell it (this is the key tho!). If you're constantly buying and selling gear, this can become cumbersome.
If you are just starting out or have made a kit change this year (I did), writing off 15k in gear may sound like a great idea, but I wouldn't recommend purposely ending up with a loss. The IRS is starting to clamp down on small businesses, especially photography with the recent increase in "pros". Having a loss for more than a year or two may well get you red flagged for an audit, which isn't fun even if you're on the up and up. And once you've been audited, you're more likely to get audited in the future. Stay out of that system and off that radar! I would honestly recommend claiming a 100 profit even if you lost 1000 this year, unless you are REALLY sure about your books.
So, if possible, save a little of that expense for next year (tag is right). Presumably, next year will be a bigger year for you (if you're growing), so you might need it more next year than this anyways. Remember guys, the goal is to pay the absolute minimum amount of tax you owe (tax avoidance= LEGAL). Tax evasion, on the other hand, is what lands you fines, and prison. This would involve claiming illegitimate expenses and hiding that payment you received for selling that 35 1.4 last month (if you used anything other than cash for the transaction, they will find it if you're audited).
Unfortunately for us, another pain in the arse is use tax. Basically, if you buy anything from Amazon, BH, Adorama, or any other online store that doesn't charge sales tax, and you live in a state that implements a use tax, you owe somewhere around 3% on all of those purchases. My understanding is that you don't need to worry about anything bought more than three years ago, but still.
Photographers are a semi-predictable bunch purchase-wise, so this would be easy for the tax man to nail you on.
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