Audio tax write-off

paulburnett,

Forget what they do in Canada.  For your question to be answered it would involved quite a bit of fact finding.  The IRS does not recognize an LLC as a taxable entity.  You have to choose how it is be taxed per the tax rules for sole proprietor, regular "C" corporation, or an S corporation.  This is much beyond any quick answer you will recieve here, so please ignore any such answers.  If you want to message me privately, I can point you to some resources (not me, I learned to hate tax law) such as 
SCORE or others.  Good luck.

I highly recommend against accepting any tax advice you receive here.  You should look at depreciation of said equipment and be aware that if you are using this equipment for personal use as well, there can be a huge effect.  It also makes a difference if your company is a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, llc ...

There is not a simple answer to your question, but some self education or a paid tax professional is in order.

Good luck.

An auditor would turn his or her head if you expensed a stapler, because it most likely would be deductible as a 179 deduction anyway.  A $5,000 dollar computer.  No.  This is basic stuff.

IRS publication 946, page 3:

You can depreciate most types of tangible property (except land), such as buildings, machinery, vehicles, furniture, and equipment. You can also depreciate certain intangible property, such as patents, copyrights, and computer software. To be depreciable, the property must meet all the following requirements. • It must be property you own. • It must be used in your business or income-producing activity. • It must have a determinable useful life. • It must be expected to last more than 1 year. The following discussions provide information about these requirements.

The section 179 discussion  begins on page 15.  If after reading that, you have further questions, don't hesitate to ask.

djones,

I'm not sure where you got the $5000.  Please explain?

I'm not a CPA, but I did retire as a Tax Law Specialist from the IRS and trained accountants and tax preparers; I addressed this particular issue hundreds of times.  

As I mentioned above, it must first be determined what sort of tax entity you are:  sole prop, corp, etc...

Frank jumped to the conclusion that you are a sole proprietor and gave you some off-the -cuff information.

Any free advice you receive here is probably worth what you paid for it.

You don't set a dollar threshold.  Whether it cost $1,000 or $20,000, it is still subject to the rules of depreciation and is not an expendable asset.  You may be confusing an expendable asset with a section 179 deduction.

Sale of depreciable assets in a business is generally not capital gains tax, but can be taxable as recapture of a depreciable asset.

From investopedia:

Depreciation recapture is the gain realized by the sale of depreciable capital property that must be reported as ordinary income for tax purposes. Depreciation recapture is assessed when the sale price of an asset exceeds the tax basis or adjusted cost basis

djones,  as I mentioned above, we're talking about assets that have a useful life expectancy of greater than 1 year and are depreciable assets, not supplies.  They maybe be deductible as capital assets, subject to the depreciation rules,  In some cases they may be deducted in full as section 179 expense, but these rules are not simple and cannot  be addressed here, in my opinion.