If you’re a dentist, oral surgeon, or practice owner who doesn’t invest in professional tax services, there’s a good chance you could be missing out on some pretty significant tax savings through deductions and credits.
With the help of professional tax planning for oral surgeons, you could identify tax saving strategies to maximize your profits while reducing your tax burden, such as the following:
Retirement plan funding
Setting up a retirement plan as early as possible in your career as a dental professional, can help you get the most tax benefits. Many retirement plans, for example, offer dental professionals the chance to make a profit-sharing contribution towards it.
To ensure that you’re maximizing your retirement planning, talk to a dental tax expert who’s familiar with the industry and its unique tax challenges and opportunities.
The Augusta Rule
Allowing owners of dental practices the opportunity to rent their homes to their business for up to a fortnight every year without tax liabilities being incurred, the Augusta Rule permits practices to take a rental expense deduction, while its owner doesn’t recognize the income from that rental.
What this means in essence, is that dental professionals can host meetings or team events at their primary place of residence, without having to pay out for conference or hotel room rentals for such events.
Bonus depreciation and Section 179
Although these are both deductions, the percentage you can take for Bonus Depreciation and Section 179, is different.
Bonus depreciation returned to 100% retroactive to the 20th January 2025, and will remain at 100% for the foreseeable future, while when it comes to Section 179, the full amount can be taken at all times, with no phase-out. Bonus depreciation can create a loss, while this isn’t the case for Section 179.
Understanding the differences between these two deductions isn’t always easy without guidance and insight from a specialist tax professional, and consulting with one will help you select the depreciation method likely to be of most benefit to you.
Pass-through entity tax (PTET)
Offering extra deductions at federal tax level, the Pass-Through Entity Tax is a strategic approach that allows practice owners to deduct income taxes at state level that wouldn’t otherwise be allowed under SALT, the State And Local Tax deduction cap placed on the individual return of the practice owner.
As with all of these tax saving strategies, exploring them in more detail and understanding whether they would be advantageous for you and your specific circumstances, is recommended, and with expert accounting for orthodontists, you can do exactly that.
State And Local Taxes (SALT)
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the SALT limit was raised from $10,000 to $40,000 for the year 2025, and every year through 2029, the limit will go up by 1%, going back to $10,000 in 20230. That said, if as a dental professional or practice owner, your modified gross income (or MAGI) as a single filer or married couple joint-filing exceeds $500,000, or $250,000 as a married person filing separately, the deduction will start to be phased out.
Maximizing your tax savings as a dentist, oral surgeon or practice owner is best achieved through proactive planning, and if you haven’t yet started working with specialist dental tax services, there’s no better time than now.