Business Expense Deductions

[YetAnotherUserName07]

In a previous question, a user was told not to pay attention to the refund meter when he saw that his business expenses were reducing his refund when presumably,  they would increase the refund.  So just to clarify, if he decided he'd "eat" the expenses himself and not claim them, he would get the higher refund?  Doesn't seem to make sense.

[VolvoGirl]

One reason, By increasing your deductions and expenses it will decease your income and you may not be getting as many credits as before like the EIC credit. You can't go by the refund monitor until you have entered everything in. Also after you reduce your income to zero there is no more refund to get back. But even though your taxable income goes down and you owe less income tax on it, you still owe SE Self Employment tax if you have a Net Profit.

Be aware, if you have self employment income you can get in trouble for not reporting all your expenses to qualify for the EIC.