Do any of you take a tax write off for fradulent or lost sales?

If yes, how much of a deduction can you take?

In Canada, at least, you have to first claim those fraudulent sales as income before you can deduct them. Net effect = Z-E-R-O

I called CCRA (That's the Canadian IRS) about this last year to make sure.

They said it has no benefit, but if it makes your accounting balance better you can do it.

I tend to keep it as simple as possible and work on a cash basis in my accounting and filings. Most fraud cases are in the order filtering process and thus do not incur a financial loss. However, in the cases that there is fraud I treat it as any other refund and add the return and any bank fees to my list of expenses.

I would be interested to see what others have done.

if you are asking about writing off bad debt (someone owed you money and never paid) then sightz is right. You can only write off that debt if you claimed it as income in the first base. This is one of the larger differences between cash and accrual basis accounting. My advice - consult a tax pro. If you still want to do it yourself, at least consult a tax pro to help you set things up initially.

Hmm, I should probably do my Taxes soon...

/goes off to reinstall quickbooks...