Corporate Gifts

If you would rather skip the Christmas party and dazzle your clients with gifts, there are dozens of gift-giving firms eager to take your orders. For gift baskets this year, rattan is out and tapestry-covered hat boxes are in, says Martucci Angiano, a partner in the Creative Concierge in Culver City.

She and her three partners have gifts ranging from an $11 box of fudge to a huge $250, 14-karat gold-painted shell filled with crystal champagne glasses and a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne. A computer firm recently sent 15 of the glitzy seashells to its best clients.

One real estate company is sending models of its buildings embedded in Lucite, while an oil firm decided to present clients with crystal Christmas tree ornaments bearing the corporate logo.

“It’s not so much what the gift is worth, but it is the presentation,” Angiano says.

Before you sign all those checks for the company Christmas party, you might want to talk to your accountant.

Harvey Goldstein, managing partner of Singer, Lewak, Greenbaum & Goldstein in West Los Angeles, said it is rare that the Internal Revenue Service will disallow your company Christmas party expenses, but you still have to be careful. “An employee Christmas party is generally deductible, subject to limits of business meals--which means 80% of the cost is deductible,” Goldstein said.

“When you have a major party and bring in customers and people who refer you business, I suspect it may not be deductible, because in order for an expense to be deductible it has to be ‘ordinary and necessary.’ ”

And, to qualify as a true business expense, the IRS says you must conduct business during the entertainment.

That might be difficult if you are sitting on Santa’s lap.