Tax deduction when using Reward Points for travel

[Kristina Jensen]

I have out of state properties that I visit 1-2x per year to either have a meeting with the Property Manager or conduct a walk-through if there is no property manager.

If I use reward points for the flight/hotel/rental car, am I able to apply the value of those points to my taxes for the travel? I took a screen shot of the dollar cost of the airline ticket along with the point requirement, but not sure how this scenario works.

I have family in these same towns, so I typically only deduct the plane fare (no hotels, gas, meals, etc.), since the business aspects are completed in a single day and I usually stay for a week.

[Jay Hinrichs]

Quote from @Russell Brazil:

Quote from @Craig Parsons:

Quote from @Michael Plaks:

Quote from @Craig Parsons:

 Obviously 5 weeks of play time can be deemed personal use. But if like in my example I have appointments on Monday and Friday of the same week. I do not see how any auditor could say that if I spent  Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday sightseeing ,on my own dime of course, that the trip was Primarily personal.   By  your logic if I spent the 3 days in my hotel room staring at the walls it is personal. 

Don't twist it into "my logic."  I'm talking about the IRS rules. Logic of any kind has a very small role in making the IRS rules. 

You also twisted the example from the Regulations. It's not about duration of 5 weeks, it is about the ratio of 1:5 - as in 1 business week followed by 5 personal weeks. Same ratio as in the OP example: "the business aspects are completed in a single day and I usually stay for a week."

In my response to the OP, I said: "There're ways to plan your trip around this requirement, but not how you do it."  Your example of business on Monday and Friday with personal days in between is a good example of a legitimate attempt to structure. 

Does it solve the problem? Maybe, and maybe not. It depends on the specific situation and on why you scheduled your appointments this way. If you had no other option to schedule, due for example to these people's availability - then I'd say yes. But if you simply chose to schedule it this way - then I'd say no. Why no? Because if we take your idea to its logical (see what I did here?) extension, I could schedule one business appointment on the 1st of the month and another on the 31st and then spend the rest of the month vacationing. Would it be "primarily for business"? 

Finally, I'm not interested in continuing our back-and-forth. I shared enough information for anybody to draw their own conclusions. You are entitled to yours. The IRS may disagree, and it's your problem at that point.

 Unfortunately I don't think we are understanding each other.  Yes you did say there was a way to schedule so that it can be deducted.  I wish you would of elaborated on that as telling someone how to do something is much more valuable then telling them they cant do something.  And all I am saying is that if I travel to my rental for a necessary and legitimate business reason and I stay a few extra days or even a month  the flight or travel expense to and from the location  IS deductible.  I would also mention to the OP that the IRS does state that use of airline miles is NOT deductible.  I also found this on IRS.gov. it seems fairly clear you sir are wrong!  

 Staying an extra few days is only allowed when its a weekend. If you're doing business on Friday, and your personal stuff on Saturday/Sunday the IRS allows the flight at the end of the weekend or Monday back. 

since I do a lot of this and actually got audited and the subject of business travel was a focus it really depends on the agent.. the agent we had unfortunately was not kind to us.. We needed the Actual printed receipts and Boarding pass's.. now this was trips that were 4 years ago.. who has that stuff .. I explained I dont go to Indy in February and look at our balance sheet we have 20 projects going there.. I got most if not all of my travel for that year disallowed.. So I talked to a very good tax attorney and he told me I would lose at tax court so there was 30k i could not write off and penalized for.. so now my  SOP for all my travel is save all airline receipts and boarding pass's.. the airlines only keep stuff for about 18 months on line.. Credit card statements do NOT count.