New York Vacation Write-Off 3

[XR250]

Just went to NYC for 5 days with the family. What an amazing place! I was totally impressed and humbled by the Architecture and Structural Engineering.
Part of my reason for wanting to go was to check out the structures. Is it reasonable to write off a portion of the trip? (I am a sole proprietor)
Maybe 1/2 of what it would have cost me to do the trip on my own?

Thanks

 

[cvg]

lets be realistic, regardless of what ron says (he is a good engineer, but not an accountant), you need to be able to defend this when you get audited. good luck, because any IRS auditor will likely discount this trip.

 

[XR250]

Possibly, but probably not worth it for the $300 or so in tax savings.

 

[ornerynorsk]

Just an FYI, meals and business use of personal vehicles are 2 of the more common audit flags for IRS. Documentation, as others have said.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[XR250]

I have heard that as well. When I worked out of my house, I never wrote off any of it as that is another red flag. Plus it is an accounting nightmare when you go to sell it.

 

[Terratek]

Wow, some of these responses are just dripping with judgement. I guess IRstuff does think the IRS wrote the code for morality. The tax code has nothing to do with morality. Do you think corporations evaluate the morality of what they write off? It's just a matter of whether the write-off is allowed or not. Period. Keep the record and ask the tax professional. All these pseudo accusations of cheating/lying are ridiculous. If you don't know the answer to a tax code question, you shouldn't just assume the question is a bad/immoral one as MacGyver alludes. Would you say the same thing about a legal or engineering question? Of course not. Because you don't have the illusion that these topics are moral in nature. Uncle Sam did a good job of brainwashing the middle and lower class portion of society about tax morals. Richer and smarter people are not fooled by it, though. As Donald Trump said, not paying taxes just makes him smart.

 

[IRstuff]

"I guess IRstuff does think the IRS wrote the code for morality"

When did I even mention morality? Breaking the law has nothing to do with morality; it has everything to do with lawlessness. I was merely commenting that not getting caught is not equivalent to not breaking the law. I think that one should simply be clear in one's thinking; breaking the law is just that; anything else is rationalization.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[XR250]

Maybe "IRstuff" should be written IRS-tuff :>

 

[Terratek]

XR250 LOL!

IRstuff - you stated "That's just a sad commentary on current morality".

 

[oldestguy]

Go ahead and use a deduction. With the way things are going, expect an audit. In the many years I was self employed I never pushed it. No lunches were deducted, very few office expenses were used, etc. As I saw it there was no point in even getting close to something questionable. Result, never an audit.

 

[Hoxton]

Audit trail.

you should have taken a professional engineer out to dinner (prefereably a friend!) and put it down to market research. copy of his business card helps

 

[XR250]

Go ahead and use a deduction. With the way things are going, expect an audit. In the many years I was self employed I never pushed it. No lunches were deducted, very few office expenses were used, etc. As I saw it there was no point in even getting close to something questionable. Result, never an audit.

Actually, the way things are going, I would not expect an audit. Funding for the IRS is at an all time low. Also, if it simply ended up in my "travel" category. It would get lost in the noise. The only time this would likely come up is if I actually got audited either randomly or for another reason. That being said, as I stated previously, it likely ain't worth the $300 or so in tax savings.

I'm with you, however, I try to avoid writing off red-flag areas.

 

[monkeydog]

So XR, you decided not to write off your vacation?

 

[XR250]

Yup, just not worth it for the minimal tax savings

 

[Sparweb]

Didn't see mention of formal professional development requirements in the preceding discussion. Many professional bodies expect you to train yourself (and others) and report this activity every year to maintain registration status. You may find a basis for including this experience with whatever Pro Eng organization you belong to in that regard... the criteria are probably more slack than tax codes. And this sounds more appropriate, ethically, than turning a family vacation into a tax w/off.

STF

 

[XR250]

I actually thought about that as I believe my board allows things like that if you can somehow justify it.
Not worth it IMHO as it is simply too easy to get PDH's online instead.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Well, _I_ could probably get away with that deduction, even though I don't do structural or architectural work for a living.

... but that's due to special circumstances.


For a long time, I computed my income tax due by means of a homemade spreadsheet, comprising the usual stuff and a couple of lookup tables.

It worked okay mostly, but it was also a pita because every year the threshold numbers changed, and pretty regularly the structure implied by the tax return's instructions also changed. ... so you had to read the whole damn set of instructions every damn year.

Sure enough, one year I screwed up.
... and overpaid my taxes.
... which I did not discover until I was reviewing my return in response to an audit request.

I sent in a polite letter, and an amended return.
... which made my tax due less, by more than $3000, so the letter requested a refund.

The refund arrived without comment in less than two weeks.

My accountant friend said that IRS auditors are ranked and motivated by how much _more_ money they can squeeze out of you, so that transaction surely put me on the
"Do Not Audit This Person Ever Again" list.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA