Other expenses incurred during the course of a business trip, such as meals and lodging, are deductible when you are required to be away from home overnight (or long enough to require sleep).

I know a Realtor who missed the sq ft of a home by more than 10%, she ended up paying for loss of wages, plane tickets, motel bills, meals plus an award for thier trobles as well as attorney fees and court costs.

The moles are pretty blind and chase the grubs, if they detect a meal in another direction that's where they head.

Personally I speak a little Spanish, I can order a meal in a restaurant, drink in a bar etc...I can also use Google Translate etc. pretty well....We have other Spanish language tenants in different buildings and they all get English leases and we have never had an issue, even when it was time to go to court.Does anybody do Spanish paperwork ?

But more than the money they make, I got a sense of how big a role it is to fix up bad homes and how it can directly impact not only the financial value of the whole neighborhood, but also promote value of local communities and healthier, safer living.

We can work with the facts about person A:- W2 before tax income of 70K- Less than 1 year full time work experience- International travel at least once a year ($2500/yr - airfare, hotel, 50% meal & entertainment cost); assume person A will do land and cultural exploration, spend at least 4 hours a day during travel to speak with real estate agent, visit potential investment building and collect their business cards- Utility expense of $115 ($45/mo cell phone, $40/mo internet, $30/mo electricity.- Rent ($500/mo)- single with no kid- person A is interested in doing a coding bootcamp ($5500 cost) and find a part time web development job in the future; knowledge from coding bootcamp can also help person A to gain knowledge with automation in his current W2 job- Does not own any business, but sometimes would talk about side business or investing opportunities over dinner table with friends and family (average cost for those dinners per month $300)- Share a name with his mom on a residential property while paying $9000 property tax per year.Here are some opportunities for person A:- 18,000 contribution to 401K- 5,500 Roth IRA or SD Roth IRA- maximum 25,000 rental real estate loss- purchase rental real estate with mortgage and take depreciation and property tax and other fees for rental real estate investment.- tax lien investment- open a LLC- Real estate opportunity in Bangkok or Manila (USD$50,000 for apartment, 0.5% rent to price ratio); foreigner can only own condo, not land- Real estate opportunity in Malaysia (USD$80,000, 0.5% rent to price ratio); foreigner can own land- Real estate investing opportunity in Brazil, Greece, or etc.- purchase land through tax sales, find construction company to build and rehab houses.Here is an example of basic tax liability for person A if he does not participate in creative investment activities using 2016 tax rate:Salary                                                         70,000401K contribution                                     (18,000)Roth IRA                                                            -Property tax for Primary Property               (9,000)Bootcamp as miscellaneous deduction      (5,500)Taxable Income                                          37,500Tax Liability (932.5+15% over 932.5)       6,417.63How would you add or modify this sample strategy to help person A to lower his tax liability and turn it into investment fund?

Maybe I should've opted for the 1 hr coaching session as it would've been a lot cheaper than flying to Dallas, staying in a hotel for 2 nights, uber, meals, and house/pet sitter. 

@Aaron Cavazos is correct, it's probably cheaper to hire a RE agent here to rent it out for you instead of paying airfare, hotel, meals, etc.

Someone's direct cash sitting in the bank generally has no conditions.It's fine if you want to meet with them and learn but do not pay for their meal and all of that not knowing who they are first.

If they do not pay, I assume the dishwasher runs after every meal.