Dissertation coach

[Jill Graff]

Situation: Taxpayer signed a contract with a university to teach, but she has to finish her doctoral dissertation within one year or lose her job. Her dissertation adviser is the dean and does not have the time to mentor her through the dissertation process. There are available and she is working with a dissertation coach. The coach, advises, reads, edits, etc., generally mentoring her through the process.

Question: Does anyone think this might be an employee business expense? If she does not complete the dissertation, she loses the job. She is not doing the dissertation to enter a new job field. She paid this coach $7000. (Anyone think we are in the wrong business?!) I have never run into this before?

Thanks in advance.

[JON]

Accounting and tax help paid

for becomes a deduction. I have never heard of it, but that means little. She could not get the job without obtaining it--does that help or hurt???? I could not have gotten in this business without having received my degree, I do not think it makes it deductable. Although I think we recently saw an MBA deducted and upheld because they already had the job... Good luck...

[taxxcpa]

Job expense

Expense to keep an existing job would seem to be deductible. Expense to obtain a degree or license in a new job would not be.

[Davc]

I would not consider it an employee business expense. It's analogous to a substitute teacher being hired to teach all year even though they haven't met the minimum requirements to be hired as a full time teacher. Additional education to meet the requirements would still be non deductible.

[Gary2]

There's a flow chart in Pub 970. It would seem this fails the "needed to meet the minimum educational requirements of your present trade or business" test. If the university routinely hires and keeps people without a doctorate to teach in a similar role (excluding graduate student assistants), then I suppose one could argue that's it's not required.

I wouldn't be surprised if similar cases have already been litigated, including the "graduate student assistant" argument. Teaching is bizarre, because it's already established that being a principal is the same job as being a teacher, but I'd expect the IRS to argue that there are fundamental differences between those teaching positions that don't require a doctorate (often teaching with no extra duties) and faculty positions that do (research, mentoring, syllabus development, etc.).

[RitaB]

I'm losing it

For two days, I have skipped over this thread, thinking: "Seriously?! Somebody is coaching desertion techniques?! What has this world come to?!

Oops.