Follow These 3 Savvy End-of-Year Tax Tips There's an antidote to the end-of-the-year rush to stock up on business expenses.

Once I became a business owner, I developed a curious obsession for paying as little in taxes as possible. Despite knowing better, I'd find myself scrambling toward the end of each year to buy a bunch of extra crap (even a new car!) that I didn't really need, all to maximize my business expenses and reduce my taxable income.

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But buying a new MacBook, redecorating my office or taking advantage of a loophole in the tax code by wasting $70,000 on an SUV is not a smart financial move -- even if that SUV would save me $25,000 in taxes. It was all wasteful spending and, frankly, an embarrassment to my image as a self-proclaimed financial guru. So I came to my senses, stopped spending my way to lower taxes, and researched wiser ways to reduce what I owed Uncle Sam. I'm sharing this all now, just after you've filed your third-quarter taxes, so you have time to be proactive instead of reactive when reducing your tax hit in a few months.