Avoid costly mistakes by preventing these common bookkeeping errors.
Last month, a CrossFit coach showed me his tax return. He'd reported $92,000 in revenue and deducted $8,400 in business expenses. His tax bill? Over $28,000.
After reviewing his actual spending, we identified $31,000 in legitimate business expenses he'd failed to track. His real tax bill should have been around $19,000. He'd overpaid by nearly $9,000 because of expense tracking mistakes.
This CrossFit coach isn't alone. At Fitness Taxes, we regularly see fitness professionals overpaying taxes by $4,000 to $15,000 annually due to preventable tracking errors. Every single time we onboard a new client, we discover thousands in missed deductions simply because they had no system for capturing expenses.
Here are the seven most costly mistakes and exactly how to fix them.
The problem: You buy resistance bands at Target using your personal debit card. You pay your gym insurance with your personal credit card. You Venmo a graphic designer for logo work from your personal PayPal.
Come tax time, these expenses are buried in hundreds of personal transactions. You'll forget half of them, estimate the other half, and ultimately give up and take the standard deduction instead.
What it costs you: A fitness coach making $75,000 with $20,000 in untracked business expenses will pay approximately $6,000 more in federal and self-employment taxes than necessary.
That's $6,000 that could have purchased new equipment, funded your retirement, or covered three months of your mortgage. Gone. Simply because you didn't separate your accounts.
The fix: Open a dedicated business checking account and credit card this week. Use them exclusively for business. It doesn't need to be fancy—any checking account where only business transactions occur works perfectly.
At Fitness Taxes, when we set up bookkeeping for fitness professionals, the first step is always separating business and personal finances. This single change typically reveals $5,000-$10,000 in previously untracked expenses within the first quarter.
One bodybuilding coach we worked with had been using his personal accounts for everything for three years. When we finally separated his finances and reviewed his statements, we found $18,000 in business expenses from the previous year that he'd completely forgotten about. We amended his prior year return and got him a $5,400 refund. The IRS literally sent him a check because he'd overpaid.
The problem: You throw receipts in your gym bag. They fade, tear, or disappear. By January, when you're trying to file taxes, you're guessing at what you spent on equipment, certifications, and travel.
The IRS requires documentation for deductions. According to Publication 463, you must substantiate the amount, date, place, and business purpose of expenses. Your memory isn't documentation.
What it costs you: Every $1,000 in forgotten deductions costs you approximately $300-$400 in unnecessary taxes (considering federal income tax, state tax, and self-employment tax).
If you're forgetting $8,000-$10,000 in expenses annually (which is shockingly common), you're throwing away $2,400-$4,000 every year.
The fix: Photograph every business receipt immediately using your phone. Create a dedicated album or use apps like Expensify. Add a quick note about the business purpose before you forget.
Better yet, use the receipt capture features built into QuickBooks Online or similar accounting software. Email receipts automatically to your bookkeeping system.
At Fitness Taxes, we integrate receipt capture into our clients' workflows so it becomes automatic. Our powerlifting coach clients photograph receipts between sets. Our online coaches snap photos between client check-ins. It takes 15 seconds and becomes second nature within a week.
A personal trainer we work with implemented this system and immediately started capturing an additional $500-$800 monthly in previously forgotten expenses. Over a year, that's $6,000-$9,600 in deductions, saving her $1,800-$2,880 in taxes. And all it took was developing a 15-second habit.
The problem: You spend $7 on resistance bands. $12 on a training manual. $15 on a client consultation coffee. Each seems too small to track, so you don't bother.
But $7 here and $15 there adds up to $3,000-$5,000 annually in legitimate deductions that vanish because you don't think they matter.
What it costs you: $3,000 in small, untracked expenses costs you approximately $900-$1,200 in unnecessary taxes.
Think about that. $900-$1,200 per year, every year, simply because purchases felt too small to matter. Over a five-year coaching career, that's $4,500-$6,000 lost to this single mistake.
The fix: Track everything over $5. Use a business credit card that automatically downloads transactions to your accounting software. The card does the remembering for you.
We see this constantly at Fitness Taxes with gym owners and personal trainers. They meticulously track their $2,500 squat rack purchase but ignore the $892 they spent on supplements for client demonstrations, small equipment, and training snacks throughout the year.
One online coach we worked with had a side habit of buying $8-$15 training books and manuals from Amazon. He never tracked these because "they're just books." When we reviewed his Amazon purchase history for the year, he'd spent $1,240 on business-related educational materials. That's $372-$496 in unnecessary taxes paid on income that should have been offset by legitimate business expenses.
The problem: You drive to clients' homes. You travel between gyms. You attend competitions and seminars. But without a mileage log, you deduct nothing.
For 2025, the IRS standard mileage rate is approximately 65-67 cents per mile. A fitness coach driving 8,000 business miles annually is missing a $5,200-$5,400 deduction.
What it costs you: That missed $5,200 deduction costs you approximately $1,560-$2,080 in unnecessary taxes.
Every. Single. Year. Because you didn't track miles.
The fix: Use GPS-based automatic mileage tracking apps like MileIQ or Everlance. They run in the background on your phone, automatically logging every trip. You simply swipe to categorize trips as business or personal.
Manual mileage logs fail because you forget. Automatic tracking solves this completely.
At Fitness Taxes, we help fitness professionals set up mileage tracking that actually works. And we constantly see coaches missing $4,000-$6,000 in annual mileage deductions because they thought tracking would be too complicated or time-consuming.
A CrossFit coach we worked with trained clients at three different boxes across the city, plus traveled monthly to coaching certifications and competitions. He was driving 12,000+ business miles annually but deducting zero because he had no tracking system.
We set him up with MileIQ. After one year of GPS tracking, he deducted $7,800 in mileage expenses, saving him $2,340 in taxes. The app cost $60 annually. Return on investment: 3,900%.
The problem: You program workouts from home. You film training content in your garage. You conduct video coaching calls from your apartment. But you don't claim the home office deduction because you think it triggers audits.
The reality: legitimate home office deductions don't increase audit risk if properly documented. What triggers audits is claiming your entire house as an office when you obviously don't qualify.
What it costs you: A fitness coach with a 150-square-foot dedicated home office in a 1,500-square-foot apartment can deduct 10% of rent, utilities, internet, and renter's insurance. On $2,000 monthly rent, that's $2,400 in additional deductions annually, saving $720-$960 in taxes.
Multiply that by 5-10 years of your coaching career, and you're looking at $3,600-$9,600 in cumulative unnecessary taxes.
The fix: Identify your dedicated office space. It must be used exclusively and regularly for business—not your bedroom, not your kitchen table. Calculate the percentage of your home this represents. Apply that percentage to deductible expenses.
Alternatively, use the simplified home office deduction ($5 per square foot, up to 300 square feet). It's easier but often provides smaller savings.
At Fitness Taxes, we walk every online coach through proper home office documentation. We help measure square footage, photograph spaces showing exclusive business use, and calculate deductions using both actual expense and simplified methods to determine which saves more money.
An online nutrition coach we work with has a dedicated 10x12 office in her home where she conducts all video coaching calls, creates meal plans, and manages her business. She'd been too afraid to claim the deduction because a friend told her "home offices get you audited."
We documented her space properly and claimed the deduction. She saved $1,840 in taxes that first year. No audit. No problems. Just legitimate deductions she'd been too scared to take.
The problem: You pay monthly for TrueCoach, MyFitnessPal Premium, Canva, Google Workspace, website hosting, email marketing, and online programming tools. Each charge is small, but collectively they represent $2,000-$4,000 in annual deductions.
These subscriptions auto-charge your credit card. You barely notice them. Come tax time, you completely forget about them.
What it costs you: $3,000 in forgotten software subscriptions costs you approximately $900-$1,200 in unnecessary taxes.
The fix: Review your last three months of credit card and bank statements. Highlight every recurring business subscription. Add them to a spreadsheet with the monthly cost. Ensure your accounting software captures these automatically going forward.
At Fitness Taxes, when we perform tax planning for fitness professionals, we specifically audit subscription expenses because coaches consistently forget about them. In fact, we created a "Fitness Coach Subscription Checklist" that includes every common app and software fitness professionals use.
During onboarding, we go through this list with clients: "Do you use TrainHeroic? TrueCoach? Kajabi? Canva? YouTube Premium for ad-free training videos? Spotify for gym playlists? Google Workspace? Zoom?" The answer is almost always yes to multiple platforms, representing $150-$400 monthly in forgotten deductions.
One powerlifting coach we worked with used 14 different apps and software platforms for his business. He'd tracked exactly zero of them on his previous tax return because they were "just little charges." Those "little charges" totaled $3,400 annually—meaning he'd overpaid by approximately $1,020 in taxes.
The problem: You've got receipts. You've tracked expenses. But everything is dumped into "business expenses" or "miscellaneous" categories.
When tax time comes, you don't know which expenses are fully deductible, which are 50% deductible (meals), or which need depreciation (large equipment). You also can't identify profit centers or cost overruns in your business.
What it costs you: Poor categorization doesn't just cost you tax deductions—it prevents you from making smart business decisions. You don't know if your online coaching is profitable or if your in-person training is bleeding money.
We've seen coaches with perfectly tracked receipts still overpay taxes by $2,000-$4,000 because they didn't know meals were only 50% deductible, or they missed Section 179 opportunities for equipment purchases, or they failed to separate home office expenses into their own category.
The fix: Use these expense categories specific to fitness businesses:
Proper categorization helps you maximize deductions and understand your business finances. It's exactly what we set up when providing bookkeeping services at Fitness Taxes for powerlifting coaches and gym owners.
Our team at Asnani CPA has decades of accounting experience, and Fitness Taxes applies that expertise specifically to the unique needs of fitness professionals. We know exactly which categories matter most for coaches, trainers, and gym owners.
Here's what's insidious about these seven mistakes: they compound.
A fitness coach who mixes personal and business expenses (#1), has no receipt system (#2), ignores small purchases (#3), doesn't track mileage (#4), skips home office deductions (#5), forgets subscriptions (#6), and categorizes poorly (#7) might be missing $15,000-$25,000 in legitimate annual deductions.
On $80,000 in revenue with $25,000 in untracked expenses, you'll pay approximately $7,500 more in taxes than necessary. Over five years, that's $37,500 lost to preventable tracking errors.
Let that sink in. $37,500. That's a down payment on a house. That's a year of living expenses. That's retirement savings. Gone. Not because the IRS took it—because you never claimed deductions you were legally entitled to.
We see this exact scenario multiple times per month at Fitness Taxes. A coach comes to us after years of doing their own taxes or working with a generic accountant who doesn't understand the fitness industry. We review their situation and discover they've been overpaying by $5,000-$8,000 annually for 3-5 years.
The good news? We can often amend prior year returns (up to three years back) and get refunds for overpaid taxes. The bad news? We can't get back years 4, 5, 6, and beyond. That money is gone forever.
Most CPAs can prepare tax returns. But they have no idea what expenses are normal and expected in the fitness coaching industry.
They don't know that powerlifting coaches regularly spend $2,000-$5,000 annually on competition travel and entry fees. They don't understand that bodybuilding coaches need extensive equipment for client demonstrations. They've never heard of TrueCoach or TrainHeroic and don't know to look for these subscriptions.
A generic accountant looks at "competition travel" and thinks you're taking a personal vacation. They don't understand that competing maintains your expertise and credibility as a coach. They question legitimate business expenses because they simply don't know the industry.
At Fitness Taxes, we specialize exclusively in fitness professionals. We know the fitness industry inside and out. When we review a fitness coach's expenses, we know exactly what to look for because we've seen hundreds of similar businesses.
We know that powerlifting coaches need to compete to maintain credibility. We know that bodybuilding professionals spend money on tanning, posing coaching, and show entry fees that are all legitimate business expenses. We know that online coaches invest heavily in video equipment and editing software.
Our clients making $40,000 to $200,000 annually typically save $4,000 to $15,000 in taxes through proper expense tracking and strategic tax planning. That's not an exaggeration—it's what happens when you work with CPAs who actually understand your business.
Here's the system that works for busy fitness coaches:
Daily (15 seconds per expense): Photograph receipts immediately. Use business credit card for all business purchases.
Weekly (10 minutes): Review last week's transactions. Ensure proper categorization. Add notes for anything unclear.
Monthly (2-3 hours or delegated to Fitness Taxes): Full reconciliation. Bank and credit card statements matched to accounting software. Profit and loss review. Estimated tax payment calculation.
Quarterly: Strategic tax planning with your CPA. Year-to-date review. Identify opportunities for additional deductions before year-end.
If you're making over $60,000 annually as a fitness professional, the tax savings from proper expense tracking and planning typically exceed professional accounting fees by 3-5x. Delegation makes financial sense.
Think about it this way: You charge $200-$400 for fitness training because you're an expert and your clients get better results working with you than trying to figure it out themselves. The same logic applies to taxes. We charge professional fees because we're experts, and our clients save 3-5 times more than they pay us.
Don't wait. Procrastination leads to OVERPAID TAXES. Every month you delay implementing these systems costs you money. A coach making $80,000 who waits six months to fix these problems will overpay approximately $2,500-$3,750 in taxes for that half-year period.
Fitness coaching is an amazing business. You change lives. You help people get stronger, healthier, and more confident. You deserve to keep more of what you earn.
Every dollar you overpay in taxes is a dollar that can't go toward your own retirement, your family's security, or reinvesting in better equipment and marketing to serve more clients.
The coaches who build sustainable, profitable businesses aren't necessarily better trainers. They're simply better at the business side—including expense tracking and tax optimization.
Your clients hire you because you're an expert in fitness and they want results they can't achieve alone. You should hire Fitness Taxes for the same reason: we're experts in fitness industry taxes, and we'll get you results (tax savings) you can't achieve alone.
If you're ready to stop making these expensive mistakes, contact Fitness Taxes today. We'll show you exactly what you're missing and implement systems that work with your lifestyle, not against it.
We're fitness tax specialists. We understand powerlifting coaches, bodybuilding professionals, CrossFit gym owners, and online fitness entrepreneurs better than any generic accountant ever will. Our parent company, Asnani CPA, brings decades of accounting expertise, and Fitness Taxes applies that knowledge exclusively to the fitness industry.
Let's make sure you're keeping every dollar you've earned. Schedule your consultation now.
We promise we'll make your business better. Whether you're making $70,000 a year or $570,000, we'll often find thousands in tax savings. NOBODY knows taxes and the online fitness coaching industry better than we do.
