Do I claim small business losses on fourth year of losses

[AmeliesUncle]

If it truly is a business, yes.

But with 4 years of losses, you need to reassess the situation to determine if it actually is a business, or if it is just a "hobby".

https://www.irs.gov/faqs/small-business-self-empl[product key removed]ess/income-expenses/income-exp...

[BillM223]

AmeliesUncle's is correct. If this is a legitimate business (I assume it is on a Schedule C) then if you properly document income and expenses, you can file with a loss for the 4th year.

Note, however, that the longer this streak continues, the odds increase that the IRS will write you and ask you to show that you have a plan to make a profit or if this is, indeed, just a hobby. If the IRS determines that it is a hobby, then all losses are likely to be disallowed.

@AmeliesUncle - note that the link does not work.

[AmeliesUncle]

@BillM223   It's the stupid Spam Filter on this forum that does that to many of the links.  Notice how it inserted "product key removed" into the URL.

[BillM223]

Yeah, I noticed the insert...but I didn't know we had an automated filter - must be new this year because we did it by hand in previous years.

If you have different text for the hypertext link than the actual URL itself, will that perhaps work?

[AmeliesUncle]

Nope, tried that.

I think that YOU (as an employee) may bypass that filter, because I've seen other employees post links that I was not able to.

[BillM223]

Does this work? https://www.irs.gov/faqs/small-business-self-employed-other-business/income-expenses/income-expenses

Huh, I guess it does. A new thing learned today!

[Critter-3]

Not all losses are alike ... many business have "artificial" losses due to buying inventory or assets on credit and being able to deduct the entire cost in the year of purchase and not have to wait until they are paid off.  By adjusting how much you expense VS depreciate you can legally manipulate the bottom line of the Sch C so you can actually make sure you have a profit even if it is a small one.  Educate yourself on these sections of the tax law.