International Travel / Continuing Education

[Roberts]

Client is a medical doctor and required to take special continuing education for some credentials. He's taking a 7 day trip to Africa where they will do 2 hours of classroom study / instruction (they receive a certificate for it) every day plus 2 hours of working in a hospital every day, visiting patients, working, observing conditions and procedures. Is this a deductible business expense?

From one of the websites I read it said it was 100% deductible if:
1. you didn't plan the trip
2. you are required to attend a work related event every day.
3. the number of hours per day didn't seem to matter, just that your presence was required each day.
4. the education is required for your employment.
5. the trip must be 7 days or less.

It's my opinion, that portion is 100% deductible as long as the trip ends there. The entire trip is a package all inclusive put out by a continuing education firm so the total is easily determined.

He is considering a 4 day extension to the trip to do a quick safari. It's my opinion, that would eliminate a portion of the deduction. 4 day extension brings us to 11 days, 4/11 is 36% so 36% of the original fee wouldn't be deductible - it would be attributed to the vacation. Is that how you would do it or would you do something different?

Thanks, never handled one that was international so it's different and more complex.

[ChEAr$]

I would separate total costs into two categories, cost of the 7 day education and marginal expenses for the added four days, making sure he didn't try to deduct the latter. Total cost of the 7 days includes air fare I take it?

[Roberts]

The fee for the 7 days included EVERYTHING. Airfare, hotels, transportation within Africa (because they visit different hospitals) continuing education....
The 4 day extension is also a set price so it's easily broken down also. It's very easy to split the cost of the vacation out of the total fee.

The vacation portion wouldn't be deductible obviously. It's probably unfair to remove 36% of the 7 day fee because much of that is 100% deductible even with the vacation added on. (Maybe the travel group setting it up will break it out)

[oceanlovin'ea]

the travel to Africa would be deductible because he is spending more time on business than on pleasure. Any expenses incurred during the pleasure days would not be deductible.

Linda, EA

[Gary2]

The special rules for travel outside the country will kick in. Assuming the 11 days include both departure and arrival, then 36% of the airfare, etc. would not be deductible. Unlike travel within the US, you can't deduct the full travel costs just because the trip was primarily for business.

There are four exceptions, one of which is the seven day rule described in the original question. Assuming he's not an employee, that rules out the "no substantial control" exception. With four days added, he doesn't meet the less than 25% personal exception. That leaves the "vacation not a major consideration" exception. Pub. 463 doesn't give any examples of this, so I'm not sure whether this could be argued, but my money is against it.