"Ron Wanttaja" wrote in message
...

The IRS wants to see a profit in three out of five years.

This is no longer true. The IRS lost a series of court cases on this one,
most notably because huge corporations such as Amazon.com, airlines, and
investment real estate would have been treated as hobby losses. Going after
only small businesses was unconstitutional under the equal protection
clause. Now the IRS uses other tests to determine if an entity is a
business.

Basically, you must demonstrate that the entity has "the trappings" of a
business and is operated like a business; that is, the business should have
its own bank accounts, pay its employees, charge for its services, have a
business address, be registered as a business under local laws, pay business
taxes, not mix business expenses with personal expenses, etc.

So, yes. If you bought a kit for the purpose of writing a book about
assembling it, the kit would probably be deductible if you actually wrote
and published a book and did all the other stuff. You should get a good tax
lawyer or accountant to set it up for you and make sure all your t's and i's
are crossed and dotted.