Business Tax Loophole: Leasing Assets To Your Corporation.

By Alex Goumakos

While there are many equally valid reasons to incorporate, saving money on taxes is a consideration that can yield relatively immediate results. Leasing assets to your corporation is a tax strategy you should absolutely consider if you already have a corporation or are thinking about forming one. Here's how it works.

Just because you incorporate doesn't mean that the corporation must own all of the assets it uses. In fact there are many legal, tax and financial considerations for NOT having your corporation own its own assets.

Leasing assets to your corporation is a perfectly legal and advantageous way to reduce your overall tax liability. When you lease assets to your corporation, the business pays a lease or rental payment and you in turn claim the lease or rental income. By doing this, you as the lessor get to deduct items such as acquisition interest, depreciation, repairs and maintenance, insurance and administrative costs.

When interest and depreciation deductions are exhausted you can then transfer the assets to a family member in a lower tax bracket or you can sell the assets to the corporation. A sale to the corporation would give it a higher tax basis (cost) than it had in the hands of the lessor (you). This would increase the corporation's depreciation deductions, thereby reducing its tax liability.

If you haven't noticed already, leasing assets to your corporation is a fabulous way to pull money out of the business instead of through payroll. When you take a paycheck, you've got payroll deductions to consider. Not so when you take a rent check.

Another reason to lease assets to your corporation has to do with double taxation. If your corporation sells appreciable assets for a big gain, and you try and take the money out of the company, you will get clobbered with taxes