Tax deductions for consultants and professional practices, in plain language.

What is in the checklist?

Questions, not tax code. Each line asks whether you paid for something — an office, a phone, a licence, a meal with a client — and tells you what counts, what only counts partly, and what to watch. Where the arithmetic is simple, the sheet does it. Where it is not, such as equipment, mileage and the home office, you enter what you paid, and the sheet tells you to ask about the specifics, because the answer depends on your circumstances.

Three tabs: the checklist itself, the things people assume count and do not, and the records to keep so that every line survives a question from a tax agency.

What do consultants, therapists, bookkeepers and other practices routinely miss?

• Professional liability, paid once a year. It comes out of the account in one lump, often in a month nobody looks at closely, and is missed more often than any subscription.
• Supervision and consultation. Therapists and coaches treat these as a cost of being licensed, which they are, and then forget they are also deductible.
• Health insurance and retirement. Both land on the personal return, not the business, so a practice with no employees often never enters them anywhere.
• The home office. A practice run from a spare room is the clearest home-office case there is, and the one most often left off out of caution.

None of these is exotic. They are missed because they are paid once a year, or land on the personal return instead of the business, or feel too close to personal life to claim. The checklist asks about each one directly.