The month of December is the time for small business owners to put together a year-end tax strategy and developing a tax plan for the tax season. But putting together a tax plan for the this tax season will be difficult due to open tax law issues, especially the status of the Bush tax cuts.

So how should the small business owners approach this year’s tax strategy? Business owners should develop a tax strategy based around on tax rules that will not change or be affected by tax law changes due to new regulations.

Here are a few year-end tax strategy tips for business owners this December:

Update Your Books
As a business owner, it is essential you know your company’s current financial state before any tax planning can be done. Knowing whether your company make or lost money for the year is critical to developing the right tax strategy.

Look Into A Retirement Plan
Profits can be sheltered in qualified retirement plans, and the 2010 rules remain relatively unchanged from 2009. For example, a corporate owner or self-employed person whose salary or net earnings are sufficient can contribute a maximum of $49,000 to a SEP (Simplified Employee Pension) plan, scoring a tax deduction while saving for one’s golden years.
Owners who don’t yet have qualified retirement plans for their companies need to complete the paperwork (provided by their financial institution or mutual fund) by Dec. 31. Then they’ll have until the extended due date of their 2010 return to make their contributions for the year.
It’s wise to discuss the wide range of plan options with a CPA or other financial adviser. Keep in mind, if you do miss the Dec. 31 for setting up a qualified retirement plan, you still have one plan option – the SEP – which can be set and funded as late as the extended due date of the return.
Remember Health Coverage
Owners (other than those with a C corporation) who pay for their health coverage can deduct it, but only as a personal expense rather than as a business expense. However, for 2010, if you are self-employed you can use the premiums to offset the amount of net earnings used to calculate self-employment taxes (which cover mandatory Social Security and Medicare contributions). Because of the tax savings, owners may want to reduce their estimated taxes. The last payment for 2010 is due on Jan. 18, 2011.
Those who use the cash-basis accounting method might also want to pre-pay their 2011 premiums to boost their write-off for 2010 while saving on self-employment taxes.
If the insurance qualifies as a high-deductible health plan, then you’re allowed a tax-deductible contribution to a Health Savings Account, or HSA, for 2010. (To be considered “high deductible” in 2010, the policy’s deductible must be at least $1,200 for individuals and $2,400 for families and meet certain other tests.) While the HSA 2010 contribution can be made as late as April 18, 2011, the sooner it is made, the more earnings you can build up on a tax-advantageous basis. Earnings will never be taxed if withdrawn to pay qualified medical costs.

Donate to charity
Business owners who have had a good year can share their good fortune with charities. The donations are tax-deductible within the limits allowed by law. For example, if you own a C corp, your charitable deductions are limited to 10% of taxable income.
For owners who record business income on personal tax returns (such as sole proprietors, or owners of S corporations or limited liability companies), it’s helpful to note a change for 2010: There’s no phase-out of itemized deductions for high-income taxpayers. That’s a shift from prior years, when contributors lost part of their charitable deductions when income exceeded a threshold amount.

Upgrade equipment
If you need to invest in new business equipment or upgrade old machines, now is a great time to act. Whether the business is profitable or not, there is a tax break to help.

• If the business is profitable, elect first-year expensing for the cost of equipment up to $500,000. (This dollar limit is up from $250,000 in 2009). If the cost is more than the dollar limit, you can also use 50% bonus depreciation and a regular depreciation allowance to effectively write off most of the cost of the purchase. The bonus depreciation option is set to expire on Dec. 31.
• If the business is not profitable, rely on 50% bonus depreciation to write off half the cost (plus a regular depreciation allowance on the other half). This write-off can create or increase a net operating loss, which can result in a carryback that can generate a cash refund.
• While first-year expensing can be used for new or pre-owned equipment, bonus depreciation is limited to new equipment. However, the purchase of equipment for both first-year expensing and bonus depreciation can be financed in whole or in part without any impact on the tax write-off.

One final tip regarding tax strategy is make to update your tax plan when the Bush tax cut and other tax credit issues are resolved in Congress

According to CBS News, for the second day in a row, Sarah Palin focused the entirety of her attacks against Barack Obama on the Democratic nominee’s tax plan, rather than his personal associations.

“Just yesterday, we learned that America’s GDP actually fell in the third quarter of this year, and that confirms what we already know, and that’s that our economy right now is shrinking,” Palin said. “This is the worst possible time to raise taxes, but Barack Obama still wants to.”

Palin repeated her mantra that Obama has “an ideological commitment” that compels him to raise taxes.

“Now, his whole tax plan, really, it is, it’s so phony that it’s already starting to unravel, and we’re gonna call it the way that we see it,” she said.

Palin said that Obama’s definition of what constitutes the middle class seems to be evolving.

“And just this morning, Gov. Bill Richardson, a top surrogate for the Obama campaign, he who is working so hard to get Obama elected, Richardson said Obama’s tax plan would define middle class as $120,000 a year and under,” Palin said. “So now, we’re down to less than half the original income level and, just give it a little more time, and Barack Obama will be back to raising taxes on folks earning $42,000 a year.”

Appearing on KOAM radio this morning, Richardson said, “What Obama wants to do is he is basically looking at $120,000 and under among those that are in the middle class, and there is a tax cut for those,” according to a YouTube clip of the interview.

Richardson’s comments appear to have been a slip of the tongue, since the Obama campaign has not announced that it has changed its policy that everyone making less than $200,000 a year would get a tax cut and no one making under $250,000 a year would be burdened with a tax increase.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the Obama-Palin Tax Plan. The true definition of the Obama tax plan appears to be elusive; it seems that everyone has a different opinion of exactly who will pay more, and who will pay under the democrat’s plan. Is it “fair and balanced”? It depends who you ask!

According to the Washington Post, new analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are both proposing tax plans that would result in cuts for most American families. Obama’s plan gives the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy. For the approximately 147,000 families that make up the top 0.1 percent of the income scale, the difference between the two plans is stark. While McCain offers a $269,364 tax cut, Obama would raise their taxes, on average, by $701,885 – a difference of nearly $1 million.

Here is your tax savings based on your annual earnings:

*the numbers have been rounded