Golf Lessons >email

[BOB W]

I GOT THIS BY EMAIL..............

Here's a question we had from a subscriber to Tax Reduction Letter who wants to deduct his golf lessons.

Question
I will play golf 40 times this year, 30 times in connection with properly documented deductible entertaining of prospects and 10 times for personal purposes. To make my play acceptable to my business prospects, I have taken six golf lessons at a cost of $900. May I deduct the cost of the lessons? (W.S., Newark, Del.)

Answer
Yes. The golf lessons improve the business skills you need in your prospecting.

You are somewhat like Tracey Topping, who used her equestrian events as the marketing muscle for her barn and home design business. The court allowed her to deduct the cost of her equestrian trainers. Topping needed the trainers so that she could win events and have her name announced over the loudspeakers as the rider of the winning horse.

You are also somewhat like the air traffic controllers who won education deductions for private pilot certification courses, aircraft rentals, and flying lessons, as this education improved their air traffic skills.

Alan Aaronson won an education deduction for his flying lessons because he proved that being able to fly improved his abilities as a news photographer.

How do you get this deduction? The first thing you need to assert is how those golf lessons improve your prospecting. For example, your improved play

might help you gain access to new and different prospects.
may give you more business prestige and standing with the prospect group you currently access (thereby improving business).
might simply keep you as you are, thereby maintaining the skill that you need in your business prospecting.
Next, you need to allocate the cost of the golf lessons to three possible categories, as follows:

Personal nondeductible golf (which you said is 10 out of the 40 times you will play golf, or 25%)
100% deductible charity event golf (if you participate in such charity events)
Regular business entertainment golf (which you said is 30 out of the 40 times you will play golf)

I PERSONALLY WOULD NOT DEDUCT THIS, BUT SOME MAY...????

[erchess]

I get these emails

My first observation is that I get these emails and I am not impressed by what I have read because there are no citations.

On the other hand this is one of his relatively speaking more reasonable answers.

We all know that a good bit of business is done on the golf course. It makes sense that there is a minimum level of skill you have to have to make money in this way and it makes sense that improving your game will improve your ability to make sales.

So with the proper notes costs associated with playing golf with customers and potential customers would be deductible. The cost of playing in a charity tournament would be deductiblele as either advertising or a charitable deduction. Of course for a Sch C Filer or an Employee Sch A is the only place for the charitable deduction but I bet that everyone we are talking about here itemizes. That leaves the golf lessons and while I think the guy is being assertive I think he has a point.

[BOB W]

My first observation is that I get these emails and I am not impressed by what I have read because there are no citations.

On the other hand this is one of his relatively speaking more reasonable answers.

We all know that a good bit of business is done on the golf course. It makes sense that there is a minimum level of skill you have to have to make money in this way and it makes sense that improving your game will improve your ability to make sales.

So with the proper notes costs associated with playing golf with customers and potential customers would be deductible. The cost of playing in a charity tournament would be deductiblele as either advertising or a charitable deduction. Of course for a Sch C Filer or an Employee Sch A is the only place for the charitable deduction but I bet that everyone we are talking about here itemizes. That leaves the golf lessons and while I think the guy is being assertive I think he has a point.

I have a problem with deducting the lessons. First of all a $900 deduction will yield, what, $350 tax saving??. And that is assuming it is all deductible. Second, the time spent developing the deduction could cost the T/P $50 in my fees. Third, Describing properly the deduction, Golf Lessons, will probably cause an audit that will cause another $300 or more in my fees. Not to mention other issues that could develop in the audit.

I would not claim the deduction ( golf lessons) regardless of its deductibility. On the other hand, if my client was being audited for other issues, I would introduce the Golf Lessons because I have nothing to loose at that point.

[JON]

2106

Employee business expense - miscellaneous itemized deduction would save you what. In any case I would find it hard to believe. "Randy Roth" attorney, tax speaker in the early 90s said you could write your rolexes and your suits off as long as you kept all the items at the office. The theory being of course that you could get no personal use out of them if they were kept at the office. A couple of years later hearing him doing his update he made no mention of that and sure enoughhear came the question - are you leaving your rolex at your office?. As told to me his answer was no I have reversed by position on that issue, it seems there is a point that says available for personal use that I should have considered.

I think it is audit roulette. I can not believe that would work any better than any other self improvement costs from teeth to trainers being deductable.

[snowshine]

I think it would help business more to be a bad golfer and let the prospects clean up in the nassau.

[gkaiseril]

Too many factors not fully explained. Also, there is no information about IRS audits or Tax Court citations.

If you are employed, have you employer pay for the lessons and let him deal with the IRS auditors.

But why stop there, why not deduct the golf club membership? Oh! That is right, it can not be deducted since the U.S. Tax Court ruled on this and the IRS publications note there is a inseparable personal use factor so there is no deduction allowed for socail club memberships even is there is a direct business associaton for the use of the club, only the specific expenses with a given event are allowed.. The same should apply to the golf lessons. You might swing it as a medical deduction, if you could get a licensed doctor to write a prescription for the lessons, think exercise.

[outwest]

The citations..

For what it's worth, here are the cites for those names in the original post.

1 Tracey L. Topping v Commr., TC Memo 2007-92.
2 Michelle Behm v Commr., TC Memo 1987-157; Morris Hinton v Commr., TC Memo 1982-539; Michael Galbreath v Commr., TC Memo 1982-540.
3 Alan Aaronson v Commr., TC Memo 1970-178.

[Davc]

Received the same e-mail. Deleted it from the server after downloading the header.

[gkaiseril]

For what it's worth, here are the cites for those names in the original post.

1 Tracey L. Topping v Commr., TC Memo 2007-92.
2 Michelle Behm v Commr., TC Memo 1987-157; Morris Hinton v Commr., TC Memo 1982-539; Michael Galbreath v Commr., TC Memo 1982-540.
3 Alan Aaronson v Commr., TC Memo 1970-178.

And the devil of the deduction is in the details. Sort of like law enforcement offices deducting meal expense. It can work for Minnesota Highway Patrol Officers but not for a Minneapolis Police Officer. The difference is that the Highway Patrol Officers has a very limited choice of meal locations while on duty, had to be in a public area within the restaurant, and was required to perform duties as needed during the course of the meal.

The link to Tracey L. Topping v Commr., TC Memo 2007-92., http://www.ustaxcourt.gov/InOpHistor...ng.TCM.WPD.pdf, indicates that Ms. Topping was an equestrian of some note and was engaged in an equestrian related business. So it would appear that an MD would not be allowed equestrian expenses but a DVM might be allowed the deduction. Or a professional golfer would be allowed the deduction for golf lessons but not a CPA or a Consulting Actuary would not be allowed the deduction for golf lessons.

The other cites are too old to be researched at the U.S. Tax Court.

[erchess]

Golf Lessons

Several valid points against taking the lessons have been raised. I particularly like the argument from Bob based on the costs vs benefits. Anyway I agree with the rest of you and I would not claim them.

[S T]

Emails

I am receiving these emails as well and they are "irritating" to say the least- He does have a website, looks like a"professional" but I am so leary of the information being passed on.

I would like to unsubscribe to the email- but have a concern that that will produce more junk emails. Obviously he obtained a "list"



Sandy

[erchess]

Safe to unsubscribe

I think he probably got the list from the OPR just by saying he wanted to market a service to tax professionals. He is also (unlike those who peddle pharmaceuticals and patient medicines) likely to be easy for enforcers of the anti spam laws to find.

When people offer a product or service that you would not mind people knowing you were interested in then by and large they will obey the spam laws. If on the other hand they're offering a product that is shady or legally questionable then they are already going to move from server to server and url to url and so it is economically sensible for them to ignore the spam laws.

[KBTS]

I tried to unsubscribe to the spam email from the esteemed W Murray Bradford. My request was not honored and the clown continues to send me his junk. I decided to set a rule in my email program which marks his messages as read and puts them in the trash automatically. Now I only notice his emails if I am looking in the trash folder for another email I have deleted.

[outwest]

I would think this one would be safe to unsubscribe..

I actually pay the money to get the full newsletter. Like it a lot because because the general tone is "there are some surprising deductions out there but follow the rules"

He's got maybe twenty articles about how taxpayers haven't followed the auto documentation rules and have been pounded by the courts. I've used them several times with clients to explain why this is important, I'm not just making it up to annoy you.

Just my opinion.

[erchess]

I unsubscribed

I will try to remember to post to this thread if I hear from him again. I did get an acknowledgement of my unusubscribe request.