How to save money and get your business education

business education

Are you planning an out of town trip to increase your education at a seminar this year? Luckily, the IRS allows you to expense all business education trips if they are to improve skills in your business.

Time and documentation.

It must be clear to the IRS that the primary purpose of this trip was to improve your skills in your business. What does that mean? Exactly what it implies: you should be learning something every day and you must be able to clearly show it.  Moreover, for tax purposes, evaluate each day you are out of town.  You’ll need to determine if each day counts as a business or personal day. For it to be a business day, you must spend 4 hours or more on business related activities. Plus, you need more business days than personal days to make it a “business trip”. This will allow you to deduct your travel costs and meals for each of your business days.

Keep these business education records in a safe place.

When documenting this business education trip, you’ll want to keep records of the following:

  • The brochure. It will list the benefits to your business. If the brochure doesn’t give such details, add some notes to the brochure to clarify how you expect to gain skills from attending this course.
  • Trip Log. Record the sessions and events you attend, contact you make and the time you spend. Make sure it all adds up to more than half the day to make it count as a business day.
  • Make notes on any handouts you receive during your educational sessions. A blank handout may look like you registered for the seminar only for the deduction and you may not have attended it.
  • Benefits summary. Create a notebook or journal where you jot down the benefits you get from each educational session. Ultimately, this type of summary will help solidify what you learned and how you will apply it in your business.
  • Your receipts. Your travel receipts are very important so keep each one of them. Any expenses that exceed $75 need to show the time, place and business purpose for the expense.

Improve your skills.

A business education trip is a great way to enhance your skills and get away from the office for a few days. Moreover, the IRS allows your business to deduct the costs of that education. Therefore, take advantage of it. Paragon Accounting & Tax Solutions specializes in small business in Canton, GA; Woodstock, GA; Marietta, GA; Alpharetta, GA; and Kennesaw, GA. We help business owners identify ways to save more on their business taxes every day.