Business Expenses Part 4-Education
Photo by: Thai Lin
Here is part four of my five part series on tax deductible business expenses. So, today we are going to talk about education expenses. This is an expense that many people have a good chance of coming across at some point in their career. If you are someone who is planning on going back to school at some point to get a higher degree this is going to be very important for you. But, as like any other tax law, you can not just go deducting any expense related to going to school. There are two rules you must follow. The first is to deduct the expenses you must be going back to school to maintain or improve existing skills required in the present job that you have. Let’s use for an example that you are an accountant who works specifically with the taxes of your company and you wanted to go back to school to get your Masters. Now if you went back and got your Masters degree in taxation, those expenses would be deductible, but if you went to get a law degree that would not be deductible. The other rule that you must follow to be able to deduct these expenses is if you are going back to school to meet requirements expressed by your employer or requirements of the law so that you can retain your employment status. This means that if your employer wants everyone in your line of work to have there Masters degree and you only have your Bachelors, the costs to go back to school would be deductible. If you are trying to meet the minimum education requirements for your current job or you are getting the degree for a different trade or business you can not deduct those costs. I hope this information can help you to save some money on your taxes and maybe give you some new insight. But, again as I had stated before if you have any in depth questions please contact a CPA in your area who can probably be of more help or ask the IRS.
