What's Deductible When You Travel to a Conference?
Here's a quiz about deducting expenses when traveling to a conference:
A provider, her husband, and their two daughters drive 150 miles to a family child care conference. They drove to the conference on Thursday, attended the conference on Friday and Saturday, spent Sunday on vacation and drove home on Monday. The husband does work for the provider (3 hours a week), but is not paid for his work. The older daughter is paid for 15 hours a week helping to care for the children. She, her husband and their older daughter attend the conference workshops. The younger daughter does not do any work for the business and does not attend the conference.
How much of the following expenses could the provider deduct: mileage, hotel room, conference registration fees, food?
Mileage
You can deduct mileage if the "primary purpose" of the trip was for your business. This means over half of the reason for the trip must be business related. In this example the provider spent two of the three days at the destination on business activities, so she can count the mileage ($.58 per mile for 2022). If she spent three days on vacation she could not deduct any miles. If she only attended the conference for two half days, she couldn't deduct any of the miles.
Hotel
The provider can deduct the cost of her hotel bill for Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but not Sunday. Since her husband works for her and is attending the conference she can deduct the full cost of their room for those nights. If he wasn't working for her and didn't attend the conference she could still deduct the full cost of the room if there was no extra charge for him being in the room. She could deduct the cost of the hotel room for the older daughter, but not the younger daughter. If they stayed in the same room and cost was the same for two as it would be for one, then the full cost would be deductible.
Conference registration
The provider can deduct the cost of the conference registration for herself, her husband and her older daughter.
Food
The provider can deduct the cost of food for herself, her husband and her older daughter for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday. She can either save food receipts and deduct half the cost of the receipts, or she can not save receipts and use the federal government food per diem rate.
The standard daily rate varies each year and is higher for many cities. Add up all the days and partial days (count ever six hours as a quarter of a day), multiply by the per diem rate and then divide by two to get your food deduction. So, let's say the provider traveled to a destination where the per diem was $69. If they left at 10am on Thursday and returned at 5pm on Monday, she was away from home 4.25 days. Since one day was personal she can deduct $69 x 3.25 days = $224.25 divided by 2 = $112.13 x 3 people = $336.39 food deduction.
Other possible business deductions for such a trip include:
Purchase of items at the conference used for her business (curriculum, toys, etc.)
Paying someone to care for the day care children on Thursday, Friday and Monday
Claiming the child care tax credit for paying a non-family member to care for the youngest daughter who did not attend the conference
Tom Copeland - www.tomcopelandblog.com
Image credit: https://www.wcwonline.org/education-and-childcare-projects
For more information about what's deductible, see my book Family Child Care Record Keeping Guide.
