Got Gear? Home Office Write-Offs for Your Personal Trainer Business
Got Gear? Home Office Write-Offs for Your Personal Trainer Business
If you are self-employed as a personal trainer, congrats! You answer to your clients, not some boss who wants to tell you what to do. But the bummer about your business is that you have to do all the work to run the business in addition to doing the thing you love, which is helping clients meet their fitness goals. It’s hard work, and you deserve the kudos that goes along with it.
But you deserve more than kudos. You deserve to keep more of those earnings in your own pocket, and stop giving it all to the government. Unless your client base is made up of celebrities, you’re probably not some multi-millionaire fitness expert, so why should you have to give away half of your money in taxes?
Everything you spend money on for your business is tax-deductible. Everything. If you need it to successfully run your business, you can deduct it.
- Drive to the gym and back every day? Deduct the mileage.
- Did you buy new exercise outfits, and do you wear them in front of clients? That’s your image. Deduct the clothes.
- Did you buy gear to set up in your home? A new set of free weights, maybe? Deduct the gear.
You’re probably thinking, wait a minute! My clients don’t use my personal gear. Well, maybe they do, if you train in your home, and in that case, you’re golden. But you can deduct it anyway. You’re a personal trainer. You have to maintain your own personal fitness in order to land clients, because nobody will hire a slob as a personal trainer. Not only that, you need to be knowledgeable about all the fitness gear available out there, including the newest stuff, and you need to be experienced at using it. It’s totally legit.
Wait, this gets better. Yes, you can deduct the gear if you bought it this year. But even more than that, you can call that part of your house a “home office” – and that means you get to deduct the house around it, not just the gear.
Wait, what? But you bought that house like seven years ago, not this year. That’s okay! You can deduct some of your mortgage interest. You can deduct some of your rent, if you’re renting. Utilities? Deduct a portion of them, too. Did you install a new air conditioner this past summer? You can deduct a portion of that as a capital improvement to your overall house. If you installed new carpeting or mirrors in your exercise space, you can deduct those entirely, because they’re exclusively for your home office.
Also, don’t forget about the gear it takes to run administrative part of your personal trainer business. Do you have an office? Is there a computer? Do you keep track of your clients in a spreadsheet, or manage your business budget online? Deduct the computer, the portion of the house where you keep it, and the utilities it takes to keep it up. If you don’t have a portion of the house dedicated to keeping up with your business, make one! It’s tax deductible.
Need more info? The IRS has all the info you need, and it’s easier to read than you might think. Check out their home office pages online and start saving this year.
Looking to maximize your income even further? Check out my Personal Trainer Secret Weapon Business Plan.
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