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The first clients of Molen & Associates came mainly from the law enforcement field. Word spread from officer to officer of the Molen’s tax service. Those clients came to the Molen home and watched cartoons with their children, while waiting for their tax appointment.

Now, more than 40 years later, Molen & Associates has expanded its client base to include those from many different professions but we are proud to still be the experts for Law Enforcement tax returns.

Ward Molen: Today, we want to talk about a topic that is very near and dear to Molen and Associates, and that is those people who are in law enforcement. We have been doing tax returns for individuals who were employed in law enforcement, whether it's county level, city level, school level, state level or federal for nearly 40 years now. And have a great appreciation for those people and for the complexities of their jobs. As you might know or may not know, people in law enforcement have tremendous out-of-pocket expenses in their jobs.

Ward Molen: In most cases, you look at someone who's with HPD or the county or school districts, and very little is really supplied to them other than the uniforms. Other than that, just about everything else they have, they have to buy themselves. And because of that, they have a very unique tax situation.

Ward Molen: Their tax situation did change two years ago with the change in the tax law because employee expenses, no matter what it might be, are no longer deductible as such. But a great many, a great majority in most cases, and people in law enforcement, work extra jobs. They work security, whether it's road jobs or building security or whatever it might be. And those people are basically independent contractors.

Ward Molen: And so all of their expenses, whether it's a handgun, ammunition, holster, whatever it might be that they buy to complete their assignments, now become an expense of their other profession as an extra job.

Ward Molen: We started doing this a long time ago when the first clients we had come to the door was an individual who had been doing a mowing service and then decided he was going to join the sheriff's department. And so we started doing research into what could and couldn't be deducted at that point because anybody who's ever worked in a self-employed environment knows that the self employment tax just can eat your lunch. It can be a very, very high dollar item on your tax return, self employment tax.

Ward Molen: Now, one of the keys in any type of a situation like this is that you need to have good records, whether it's the miles you drive, you have to keep a good log on the miles you drive. Whether it's items that you buy and you need to make sure you keep that receipt for the ammunition or the gun or the holster or the boots, whatever it might be. It is easy to go and buy something. And it's easy to just list it on your tax return. When that auditor comes knocking on the door, you need to make absolutely sure you have all the receipts, the mileage lines, all the different things like that so that you can justify the expenses that you've had.

Ward Molen: Some people say, oh, boy, I need that extra gun, I need extra rifle to bring my taxes down. And certainly anything like that will help you from a tax perspective. But it is important that you realize that even if you are paying 30 percent in taxes, 15 percent income tax and 15 percent self employment tax, and you buy that gun for four hundred dollars, Uncle Sam is going to eat a hundred and twenty dollars on it.

Ward Molen: But out of the 280 dollars you still got to talk to your wife about it. So don't necessary just go buy things only because you think it will reduce your taxes because there's another side to that coin. We've worked long and hard with law enforcement. I would like to think that we probably know more about law enforcement in depth than any other tax preparer in the nation because we work with so many and have for so long. So if you had any questions on what you can do, what you can't do and you're concerned about how much you're paying in taxes, give us a call. We would love to talk with you. We'd love to give you some insights and most importantly, like help you pay the least honest tax that you actually owe.
Thank you.