Ryan VaughnCOO of Incite Tax & Accounting. Ask me anything about your taxes.

Claim More Tax Deductions - Going Out to Eat

8 Sept 2017 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:23

In this YouTube segment, the speaker explains how meals and entertainment expenses can become tax-deductible when they involve potential business contacts. He emphasizes that the IRS requires two pieces of information for each deduction: the person(s) you met and the specific business purpose of the meeting. To satisfy this, he advises writing the name of the person and the purpose on the back of each receipt and then storing all receipts in a single envelope labeled by tax year (e.g., 2017, 2018). This simple, low‑maintenance system ensures the documentation is readily available if the IRS ever requests proof of the deduction.

Chapters

What I mean by that is, let's say for meals entertainment, maybe you're going out to get some coffee or you're going to lunch. If you're meeting with anybody, if you're discussing work-related matters, I mean, the waiter, the waitress, anybody can be a potential client. They could ask, oh, well, what do you do for work? You're dressed up nice. What's your name badge? Anybody It could be a potential client, customer. I mean, they could wonder about anything. If that's the case, the meals and entertainment is now a deduction. So, on the deduction for meals and entertainment, we need 2 purposes. IRS is going to ask who you met with and what was the business purpose. So, what I would do is take your receipt, write on the back who it was— who you met with and then what it was about. Keep all of your receipts. Start a big envelope for 2017, shove all the receipts in there, start a new one for 2018. I would not— I do not organize those in any such way. Just shove them in there and they're there all in one place if you ever need them.