It’s that season again! No, not lawyer season where we get to shoot lawyers or tourist season when we get to hunt down tourists. Tax season… where we end up shooting ourselves.
Here’s my tax question for the day. I’m looking at Form 8863, Education Credits where I can deduct for certain education expenses. Since my tuition and fees are being provided, I can’t take the Tuition and Fees deduction on 1040A, line 19. That leaves me open to possibly take a credit on line 31 for other education credits. But the instructions for form 8863 are vague on exactly what is a legitimate expense for this credit. I paid $86 last year for a standardized test as required by my college program so I’m pretty sure that will be a legitimate expense. But what about mileage to and from classes? Can I include that?
Go Mike Huckabee, Oh Great Eliminator of the IRS!!!
Commuting expenses (whether for work or school) are not considered to be deductable expenses. The cost of commuting is determined by your choice of where to live - not by the cost of the education per se. Extreme example to illustrate the logic of non-deductability: I live in Massachusetts, but if I went to school in Los Angeles, I would not be able to deduct the cost of daily plane tickets. If you where employed by the school AND you used your car on school business - that would qualify for a milage expense deduction.
That being said, why on earth are you asking unicyclists for tax advice?? Yikes, I would hate to have to defend myself in an audit based on advice from a unicycle forum (full disclosure: I am not an accountant, nor do I give tax advice in any sort of professional capacity).
Even beer, however necessary for a quality education is not an allowed expense
I sort of figured that. Commuting to work is what the IRS considers “preparing to work”, a sort of loophole to keep the commuting expenses out of the deduction column.
I was hoping to attract the attention of Steve Dekoekkoek, for he is the smartest man in the world.
You can deduct your transportation costs if your education is job-related and your transportation is going between work and school. Your education may or may not be job-related.
Of course, the first thing you may want to do is determine what revenue is taxable income. Most people get ths wrong.
Nah, we need to solve the root of the problem. Go Ron Paul, Oh great eliminator of the IRS, who will replace it with nothing, by reducing spending.
Uni expenses are deductible education costs but the uni itself has to be depreciated over 5 years using the straight line method. If you are not filing jointly, you may deduct 100% of your unused, pre-2006 carry-forward uni expenses, unless you use Kenda tires, in which case your deduction is bumped up by 33.33%. If you are filing jointly, inhale the joint, then claim 125% of your otherwise non-deductible giraffe expenses. If line 10 exceeds line 2 by more than 4, deduct line K. Unless it’s Thursday.
Or just claim the lot of it, just to see.
Sorry…it’s lunch time. My blood sugar must be low.
No doubt the specific rules are different where you live, but here commuting expenses are not generally deductible - the rules cover travel from home to place of work (or they did when I had to know such things in exams) so off site visits direct from home are also not deductible.
I once worked with a guy who came 30 miles into the office, only to then travel another 30 miles to the customer’s site, which was about a mile from his house, just to get around this rule. Not really following the spirit of the law there, I thought. He also claimed a mileage allowance from the firm, which was tantamount to theft…
Well, I just studied the rules and forms on education credits for over an hour, then entered my $27.20 credit on my 1040A. It just doesn’t see justified somehow.
Yeah, most people voluntarily pay a tax they do not owe. In Bruce’s case, I thought he worked in the public sector, so his income is probably taxable, so I’ll take that assumption that he is a taxpayer. For those working in the private sector, you do not owe a tax on the fruits of your labor. After all, if someone can have first claim to take the product of your labor without your agreement, you really aren’t a free person.
There is either the Rule of Law, or no rules at all.
