I'll see if I can dig up the P&P article. (of course the auditors will just
stare at you when you try to convince them that P&P should be believed more
than the Tax code ).

As for learning to fly having nothing to do with my job, that's not true at
all. My job requires quick response times. Currently, some of those
responses are 5-10 hours, which is detrimental to my business. Now,
according to what little digging and asking I have done (my brother is a
Revenue Officer, so he cringes when I talk to him about this ), as long
as i'm not being paid to fly and that flying is only a "better" means of
transportation to get me TO the site, then I'm good. Just like if the
business paid to have someone learn a new software app in order to do their
job better.

I'm not advocating this for anyone, I'm just saying that when I read the P&P
article, I asked a tax accountant and then called the IRS and asked the
$10/hr person who answered the phone. So, in reality, I'll still be the one
going to jail.

And BTW, don't fall for the "my accountant signed off" veil. When the tax
comes due, my brother (and his like) come to YOU, not your accountant. The
taxes, penalties and interest all fall on the taxpayer, not the preparer. I
know a guy that went down hard believing he could skirt his taxes and that
his accountant was a curtain for him. Not so. Taxman showed up at his door
and his accountant suddenly became hard to find

jf


"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"Jeff" wrote in message
...
Plane and Pilot had a Tax article about a year or so ago that was pretty
good. I wrote (and am writing) off my PPL and my Instrument. I support
networks for clients that are 10hrs+ away by car, so the IRS allows this
as a normal training expense. According to the P&P article and my
accountant, I can take these deductions as non-reimbursed business
expenses (training), just like I was learning a new software app.

I hope you don't get audited. On the bright side, you do have an
accountant you can blame everything on. Hopefully, he'll pay your
penalties for you.

Everything I've ever read during research of tax deductions has indicated
that training is only deductible if it is DIRECTLY related to your
EXISTING profession. Even if you are training to become a professional
pilot, until you ARE a professional pilot, the pilot training is not
deductible. Pilot training for the furtherance of some profession OTHER
than piloting would be non-deductible without exception.

The main issues are that I have to ALREADY have clients in places that
flying becomes benificial, meaning I can't say "I'm gonna expand to
another state next year, so I want to learn to fly". I have to already
have the clients in that state to use them as justification.

I can easily believe that flight expenses directly related to visiting
those clients is deductible. That's a perfectly legitimate business
expense. But the training required so that you can be qualified to make
those flights hardly seems like a deductible expense.

Also, I can't write off any rating that would be classified as "career
changing". Or something I am using to change career paths. So, my
Commercial doesn't qualify or my ATP. But Multi would, if I have a plane
for that purpose, etc.

Odd that you would be aware of the issue of deductible expenses being
related to your existing career, and yet still be under the impression
that you can deduct flight training expenses when your profession has
absolutely nothing to do with piloting at all.

As with everything, check it out for yourselves, but it's working for
me....so far.

I hope you don't get audited.

Pete