Strategy Snapshot
These are not aggressive schemes; they are written into the code and rewarded when documented. The Augusta rule lets your business pay you tax-free rent for limited home use. Hiring your kids shifts income to low or zero brackets. An accountable plan turns personal-out-of-pocket business costs into clean deductions. Documentation is what separates each from an audit problem.
Rent your home to your business for up to 14 days a year. The business deducts the rent; you receive it tax-free. Requires a real business purpose and market-rate pricing.
Wages to your children for genuine work are deductible to the business and taxed in their bracket, often zero up to the standard deduction. In a parent-owned unincorporated business, young children's wages can also escape payroll taxes.
A formal reimbursement policy lets the business deduct home office, mileage, and other personal-paid costs without creating taxable income to you.
Business owners are often told that real tax savings require complicated structures. Frequently the opposite is true. Some of the most effective moves are small, specific provisions written into the tax code, ignored mostly because owners do not know they exist or assume they are too good to be legitimate. Three of them stand out because they are simple, repeatable every year, and entirely defensible when documented.
Each of these strategies takes money you were going to spend anyway and moves it from the non-deductible column into the deductible one. The price of admission is documentation.The common thread
The Augusta Rule: Tax-Free Rent From Your Own Business
Named for the homeowners who rent out their houses during the Masters golf tournament, Section 280A(g) lets you rent your personal residence for up to 14 days per year and exclude the rental income entirely.
For a business owner, that creates an opportunity: your business can rent your home for legitimate purposes, board meetings, strategy sessions, team events, client functions, and:
- The business deducts the rent it pays
- You receive it tax-free, because it falls under the 14-day exclusion
Hiring Your Children: Shifting Income Down
If you have children and a business, paying them for real work is one of the cleanest income-shifting strategies available.
- The wages are a deductible business expense
- The income is taxed in your child’s bracket, which is often 0% up to the standard deduction
- The child can use earned income to fund a Roth IRA, starting tax-free growth decades early
There is an additional benefit for unincorporated parent-owned businesses (a sole proprietorship or a partnership owned solely by the child’s parents): wages paid to a child under 18 are exempt from Social Security and Medicare, and under 21 from federal unemployment tax. (This payroll-tax break does not apply if the business is an S-corp or C-corp.)
Accountable Plans: Reimburse Yourself the Right Way
Many owners pay business costs personally, a home office, a personal cell phone used for work, mileage, and never capture the deduction, or grab it in a way that creates messy taxable income. An accountable plan fixes this.
It is a formal written policy under which the business reimburses you for business expenses you paid out of pocket. Done correctly:
- The business deducts the reimbursement
- The payment is tax-free to you, not reported as income
| Common accountable-plan reimbursements | Notes |
|---|---|
| Home office (portion of rent/mortgage, utilities) | Often the largest item for S-corp owners |
| Mileage / vehicle use | Reimburse at the standard mileage rate |
| Cell phone and internet | Business-use percentage |
| Travel, meals, supplies paid personally | Receipts required |
This is especially valuable for S-corp owners, who cannot take a simple home office deduction on a personal return the way a sole proprietor can. An accountable plan is the correct mechanism. See S-corp owner health insurance and accountable plans for the payroll and reporting details.
Documentation Is the Strategy
Notice the pattern: none of these are loopholes in the pejorative sense. They are provisions Congress wrote, and each one is defended the same way, with substantiation. Comparable rate quotes for the Augusta rule. Time logs and payroll for your kids. Receipts and a written policy for the accountable plan. The owners who lose these on audit are not the ones who used them; they are the ones who could not show their work.
When to Seek Help
These strategies are accessible, but the documentation standards and the interactions with your entity type, an S-corp changes the child-payroll math, for example, are where they go right or wrong. A short planning session to set up the policies correctly the first year (templates, rate support, payroll setup) makes them safe to repeat on autopilot every year after. If you are a profitable owner who has never used any of these, you are very likely leaving routine, defensible deductions on the table.
Last updated: 2026