No matter what kind of business you are in, you constantly need to keep up-to-date on new techniques, new products, new laws and regulations, new marketing techniques, etc. People call continuing education by many different names including: educational expense, professional development, seminar expense, and conference expense. Whatever you call it or classify it in your accounting program, it all boils down to continuing education.
Continuing education is anything you go to or subscribe to that will give you information about how to operate your business. It can be for the business owner or to educate employees. Often people go to a seminar or trade show and don’t think about the cost of traveling there, staying there, or even the cost of the event as tax deductible. Also, this is where travel and vehicle expense combine with educational expense. There are a few types of continuing education that you should be careful with. One is the personal development seminar. These can be a gray area in the tax deduction arena. There are a lot of promoters of personal development, positive thinking, etc. that have been very popular over the past few years. These events can be tax deductible as long as the information can lead to improving your business. An event about improving your marriage would not be tax deductible. But one about learning how to relate to others and develop business relationships could be deductible. Just make sure you keep good records about what the seminar taught. Or you can keep information about what the seminar advertised it would teach can help verify that the event was considered tax deductible. If you can determine the event is educational, all of the expenses are deductible as previously mentioned.
There are many things you can count as continuing education. Check out this MP3 “Vehicle, Travel, & Continuing Education” to learn more about ways that you can deduct continuing education on your taxes. Just visit www.avoidbeingaudited.com.
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