Are work related expenses only deductible if such expenses are mandatory for my employment? For example, if I am a dentist associating at a practice, I assume I can deduct my expense for license renewal, malpractice insurance, CPR training, etc.. because without these I cannot practice dentistry. But how about traveling to continuing education courses, or the annual ADA meeting? I am certainly not being forced to go to such meetings by my employer, nor do I need to go to them to legally practice dentistry, so would they not be deductible?
what if you find a package deal, where 5 days is cheaper (or no more expensive) than the two days? I used to travel back east on the right days and get such a savings on airline tickets that it paid for the extra lodging.
True, they're not deductible on Schedule A itemized deductions (subject to the 2% of AGI rule and AMT), or Schedule C. But they are deductible for the tuition and fees deduction, or education/tuition credits.
permitted (and subtracted from the total of the trip) if they are less than
25% of the trip. That includes 25% of the TIME of the trip, so 1 day in 4 isn't going to kill your business trip, but 5 out of 7 (or 3 of 5, depending on how one interprets the question) certainly will.
Well, I think that some of this will come down to the principle of asking whether there is a legitimate business purpose in spending the extra days. One could argue that reducing the overall cost of the trip would be a legitimate business purpose.
In fact, especially back in the days of the Saturday night stay, even the federal government finally (after many years of study and argument) relented and allowed the extra lodging costs to be charged to contracts if the net result was to lower the total cost of the trip. [I'm sure the practitioners on this board can appreciate how easy it is to get the federal government to change ANY rule, even when it is the logical thing to do...]
Isn't the 25% rule only for foreign travel? For domestic travel they only use adjectives. From publication 463:
Travel in the United States
The following discussion applies to travel in the United States. For this purpose, the United States includes the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The treatment of your travel expenses depends on how much of your trip was business related and on how much of your trip occurred within the United States. See Part of Trip Outside the United States , later. Trip Primarily for Business
You can deduct all of your travel expenses if your trip was entirely business related. If your trip was primarily for business and, while at your business destination, you extended your stay for a vacation, made a personal side trip, or had other personal activities, you can deduct your business-related travel expenses. These expenses include the travel costs of getting to and from your business destination and any business-related expenses at your business destination.
Exception 3 - Less than 25% of time on personal activities. Your trip is considered entirely for business if:
You were outside the United States for more than a week, and * You spent less than 25% of the total time you were outside the United States on nonbusiness activities.
For this purpose, count both the day your trip began and the day it ended.
If you do the latter, the transportation and lodging is not deductible though, right? Just the tuition to attend any CE courses is, right? And would one claim this on the Lifetime Learning credit?
BeanSmart website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.