The U.S. Treasury Department’s Internal Revenue Service offers numerous Small Business Tax Education Program videos through its regional offices. Topics include depreciation, business use of your home, employment taxes, excise taxes, starting a business, sole proprietorships, partnerships, self-employed retirement plans, Sub-Chapter S corporations and federal tax deposits.

If you’re considering using a portion of your home as a business office, request Business Use of Your Home (Publication 587) from the Internal Revenue Service (Washington, D.C. 20224). It’s free and will help you determine if your business qualifies for this option as well as how to take advantage of it to lower your taxes. If so, you will add Form 8829, Expenses for Business Use of Your Home, to the sheaf of forms you file with your Form 1040 and Schedule C.

Depending on how much you use your business vehicle for personal use, you can either list all costs of operating the vehicle as an expense or you can deduct a standard mileage rate as an expense when you file income taxes. For more information, request Business Use of a Car (Publication 917) from the Internal Revenue Service. There’s no charge for this publication.

What business expenses are deductible? There’s a long list. The best answer is found in a free publication offered by the Internal Revenue Service, Business Expenses (Publication 535).

To find out more about your tax obligations, contact your regional IRS office (or call 800-829-3676) for the following publications:

• Tax Guide for Small Business (Publication 334).

• Guide to Free Tax Services (Publication 910).

• Your Federal Income Tax (Publication 17).

• Employer’s Tax Guide (Circular E).

• Taxpayers Starting a Business (Publication 583).

• Self-Employment Tax (Publication 533).

• Retirement Plans for the Self-Employed (Publication 560).

• Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax (Publication 505).

• Business Use of Your Home (Publication 587).

The first publication on this list, Tax Guide for Small Business, is the most important. Request it as soon as you begin planning your business. It describes business organization, assets, profits, net income, taxes and tax forms in clear language. It also includes sample tax forms filled in to illustrate how they are completed. A new edition is published each January on the prior tax year including important changes in the federal tax laws. Your state may have a similar publication for filing state business taxes.

You can also download these forms (Adobe Acrobat PDF format) from http://www.irs.gov.