Nobody wants to pay more in taxes than necessary. To that end, the Internal Revenue Service offers taxpayers a variety of allowable deductions regarding several types of expenses, such as those related to childcare expenses or employment. Like all deductions, though, it is important to be mindful of the permissibility of what you’re trying to claim.
Job-related expenses can be a particularly thorny issue. The idea of what you might think of as an allowed deduction may not match that of the IRS. You may need to rely on the advice of an experienced tax attorney to make sure that you are not going too far down a path that may not be in your best interests.
A court case from this past year shows what happens when there is a conflict between what an individual taxpayer and the IRS deems to be a valid deduction. In the case, a physician claimed a deduction for the cost of flying lessons as a business expense. Under the tax code, educational expenditures are permitted if that training improves or maintains a worker’s skills as required of him in his job.
The physician said he needed the flying lessons so that he could travel to remote locations to practice charitable medical work. While this endeavor is no doubt admirable, the man’s deduction was not allowed because learning to fly a plane did not have a direct effect on the skills needed to practice medicine.
In many cases, working with an Atlanta-area tax attorney can help when you find yourself in a dispute with the IRS.
Source: Accounting Today, “Beyond the Extenders: The Tax Legacy of 2015,” Patrice Johnson, Jan. 3, 2016