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TAXING MATTERS
NOW THAT'S A SWEETHEART DEAL
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Thinking roses again for this Valentine's Day? Robert Greene, a Staatsburg, N.Y., accountant, says if you're married and work for yourself, you can do better.
He has developed the Spouse Employment Contract (SEC), a document that helps put your honey to work for you. No, this isn't indentured servitude. The plan, based on an odd collection of tax loopholes, actually is a gift. When self-employed workers contractually hire a spouse, they can write off expenses that ordinarily aren't deductible, including all child-care and medical bills. The SEC, Greene says, passes muster under a 1994 IRS ruling, No. 9409006.
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But you don't have to be limited to run-of-the-mill expenses. After Greene hired his wife, Nancy, as a typist, he deducted $1,000 for upkeep on his swimming pool, declaring it an "employee athletic facility." Even Valentine's gifts can be counted as employee benefits. All told, the SEC has saved Greene about $6,000 a year. Since hiring his wife in 1995, the IRS has not challenged him. So is Nancy in line for a great gift this year? Not from Greene. He says he's too busy doing other people's taxes to shop. -- Robert Barker
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Robert Greene is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Management Accountant. Before building his own professional practice, Greene worked at accounting firms in the New York metropolitan area. For 5 years, he audited other CPA's, as part of the professional policing activity of the prestigious American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He has been a practicing CPA and accountant for 15 years, and is based in Dutchess County, New York with offices in New York City and Long Island and clients in fifteen states. Robert Greene can be reached at 800-834-3285, or by fax: 845-889-8161.
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