Travel expenses are deductible only if you planned the trip for a specific business purpose before booking. If you visit Disneyland during a client meeting trip, that's fine, but you can only deduct your solo costs, not what you paid for family members to tag along.
All right, the tip today is going to be related to travel tax deductions. Who doesn't like to travel? Who doesn't like to write that off as a business expense? Like, how awesome is that? So here's the rules on how that has to happen. In order for you to be able to write off the expenses of your travel, there has to be business purpose to the travel. That business purpose Also has to be able— you have to be able to prove that the business purpose existed and that's why you scheduled the travel. I can't go on a trip for fun, like, hey, I want to go hang out at the beach in South Carolina this weekend. So I go to South Carolina, and while on the beach, I happen to run across the lifeguard and we start talking about business. That doesn't work because it wasn't premeditated, it wasn't pre-planned. So in order to write it off, the business purpose has to be established before you decide to schedule the trip. So if I wanted to go to Orange County, I would— Orange County, California, there's a certain place there that a lot of people go to. Disney World. I would want to look, for example, for us, I'd look at our client list, and I happen to have a handful of clients who have gyms in Orange County. So I would say to myself, I really want to meet with them. I know we're in Utah. I want to, you know, establish a better relationship, maybe see their operation. It might give me some insight into some additional consulting I can provide them or help them save on taxes in some way. So I schedule those meetings. Now I have business purpose to go to Orange County. Well, it just so happens that Disneyland's down there too. So maybe I take my kids along with me. I am still going to be able to write off a good chunk of my expenses to go down there. Now the rule is when I travel with family, I can only write off The cost that I would have incurred had I gone by myself. So if I get a— so for example, in a hotel, you would only be able to write off the single occupancy rate of your room as opposed to double occupancy, or if they have a different occupancy rule. I'm getting technical. The main point I wanted to share quickly was you You need to have the business purpose established ahead of time. If you do in fact have business purpose established, you write off the cost of the travel. We're talking airfare, hotel stay, if you're getting a rental car, if you're Ubering, your meals. Those would be things that you could write off now under the trip, under the travel expense. So hopefully you enjoyed the tip. If you did, feel free to share it and also subscribe to our YouTube channel. And we will, we'll see you around.
