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I don’t know about you all, but I’ve attended WAY more business meetings and retreats than I have hosted (well, outside of this specific job as a retreat planner). Odds are, over the course of your life, you’ll also attend more business retreats than host them. This makes sense, but have you ever wondered what tax deductions you’re leaving on the table when attending a business retreat?
YES.
I have good news that will make your life easier! There are many things you can write off from your taxes if you attend any sort of business retreat or meeting.
I’ve collected the 6 EASIEST business retreat tax deductions if you’re an attendee. They’re seriously extremely easy, so bookmark this page to remember for later! (“But, again, how do you know this information, you witch woman?!”
I’ll take that compliment 🙂 because knowledge is power! The IRS still tells us this stuff, you just have to search to find it.
Accio IRS website
Not a big surprise, but you can write off your transportation from your home to the meeting or retreat. What can this include?
Starting this retreat right. But wait, what about returning home? Since you already wrote off everything going TO the retreat, that’s all you can do, right? Oh goodness no!
You can write off the reverse of all of that too. And how about rides between your hotel and conference room daily DURING the retreat? You guessed right – write all of that off!
See – super easy. What else can you write off??
You remember when you needed to travel to get to the retreat? You had to pack some extra luggage to impress all the bosses with your Fancy Attire. They’ll be blown away by your style, but what about that extra luggage fee you paid on the airplane?
No worries there because you can write it off afterwards!
Now, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t work for like 50 pieces of luggage (unless you can argue that all of it was needed, but who are you at that point, Beyonce??), so make sure you have a reasonable amount of luggage.
Besides your fancy threads, you also need some actual work materials to get stuff done (groan). You can ship that from your home or home office to your retreat location.
It’s less fun than pretending to be a star diva with an impossible amount of talent and charisma, but it’ll make the rest of your trip easier.
Ship those materials all you want and write them off your taxes later!
You’re required to be at this business retreat, right?
Meaning you HAVE to pay for your hotel, or whatever lodging you choose.
That’s not fair, so go ahead and write the entire amount off of your taxes as well!
Do you have to stay at 2 different places because management didn’t give you enough advance notice and this is the only thing you could find? No problem!
Write both off! Again, you aren’t the Queen B, so staying in the penthouse might not be reasonable, but if it’s the only option it’s the only option!
Now that I think about it, the penthouse might be the only option for every one of my future retreats 😉
Here’s a weird one that you might not have thought about before: dry cleaning and laundry.
You’re away from home. You have no way to use your own cleaning supplies or washing machine. Because you’re looking fabulous from previously mentioned amazing wardrobe, you need to maintain a high level of cleanliness.
You aren’t a college student anymore and I don’t care what the models say, DON’T wash your clothes in the sink of your hotel room. Completely unnecessary!
For your extra special stuff, go ahead and send it out to dry cleaning. Feel rest assured that the hotel dryer won’t shrink ANY of your items.
For normal pieces of your wardrobe, you can write off getting that cleaned as well. If you’re staying in the previously discussed penthouse, laundry is probably already included in the price so you’re really saving your company money. What a team player you are!
You’d call yourself a nice person. You’re reasonably kind to everyone you meet.
Even if you’re a Diva, you still treat staff or service individuals nicely. That makes it all the better that you can write off any tips you give to any service provider during your retreat.
You can write off all of these tips. I know you didn’t need another reason to be nice to people, but it’s excellent that everyone can benefit from this one thing!
I might as well go ahead and mention this now: you should keep receipts of everything you pay for on this retreat. But you already knew that, right?!?
Food can be a bit tricky because there are weird IRS rules about it, but if you have all of your receipts kept together you’ll be one step ahead of The Man!
In general, if your food isn’t being reimbursed by your employer, THEN your meals are 50% tax deductible. I don’t know why food is the thing that is the most confusing, but there are like 3 different parts of different web pages that discuss different ways food can be tax deductible.
Again, you can’t be ordering caviar and champagne on the daily and expect to write it off. I’m not sure why you keep thinking you’re a musical legend, but you aren’t (unless you are and in which case Beyonce we’re here to support you in any way!).
If you’re ordering pancakes and sandwiches for your meals, you should have no trouble writing off 50% of the total cost. So this one isn’t quite as fun as everything else, but it’s still a big part of your daily life during your retreat, so remember it!
There you have it: 6 of the EASIEST things to write off if you’re attending a retreat. This stuff just goes to show that there are so many little things that go into thinking about a retreat, either attending or hosting. I definitely had never realized I could write off tips before. You learn something new every day!
If you want to talk with us about planning your own retreat, click here to set up a Connection Call! We can’t wait to hear from you!