Education credit and internet

[Bonnie]

Have a customer wanting to deduct expenses for computer and internet connection because they are taking college classes on line. Can't decide how I should handle this. I'm thinking no but also they can't do the class without the internet. What is everyone else's thoughts.

[taxcraft]

Partial Use

You need to convince the client as much as the IRS. Get the discussion down to days and hours of education use( for a percentage computation) and check if the expenses are limited to only certain items(computers not mentioned) for the credit or deduction you are looking to use.

[travis bickle]

Depends

Have a customer wanting to deduct expenses for computer and internet connection because they are taking college classes on line. Can't decide how I should handle this. I'm thinking no but also they can't do the class without the internet. What is everyone else's thoughts.

on how your client has/had everything set up.

I had a client getting her degree [MLS] by "distance learning". She went and purchased a new laptop solely for class use, and an internet account solely for class use [on that computer], and miscellaneous software for classes. Since the university required that she be able to participate in online discussions, submit papers via email, corespond with professors via email, etc, I had no second thoughts about it all being educational expenses.

Incidentally, the above was all job-related education years before the Hope Credit, etc, so it all went on her Schedule A.