If you frequently travel for business and you decide to take a family member with you, it’s essential that you keep accurate records in order to take a tax deduction for business expenses.
Use the suggestions below to keep accurate records of your business versus personal travel expenses if you combine recreation in a business trip.
You don’t necessarily have to avoid combining business and recreation simply because you’re afraid of how it will look, but it is essential to keep accurate business records that separate your recreation from business expenses.
If you work for yourself and you pay out-of-pocket for your business travel, consider using a corporate account that you have for your company to pay for your travel expenses, so that your business and personal records are kept apart.
Realistically, you may want to purchase air tickets simultaneously, which can present a problem in separating out your legitimate airfare expense and your spouse’s.
If you want to have a very good experience i advise you to book airport transfer services. There are many companies all over the world that provide the best services of this kind. By example, if you travel to London, and land to Luton airport, you shall look in Google for : Luton taxi transfer by TwelveTransfers. I works the same in all the big cities of the world.
If you decide to use your corporate account to purchase both tickets so that you’re sure you and your spouse get on the same flight, make sure you have your spouse write a personal check to reimburse your business account. A check describing the reimbursement for airfare is better record-keeping than merely paying your business back in cash.
Make sure you carefully determine how many days are required for business by determining how long your trip would be if you were only traveling for business.
For instance, you might arrive a day ahead of your scheduled business engagement and you might leave a day after your scheduled business engagement, but it’s unlikely that three or four extra days would be part of legitimate business expenses.
If you’re traveling by car, you can deduct actual expenses or use standard mileage amounts. Your spouse’s travel expenses would be covered by your travel expenses because in this instance your spouse is not separately incurring additional travel expenses. You should also keep records for tolls associated with traveling to your work-related destination.
When it comes to choosing lodging, you should determine the cost of a room you would get if your spouse were not traveling with you. If you decide to upgrade your lodging, it’s likely you’ll be able to still deduct the expense.
If you normally stay in less extravagant hotels for business, you should not claim the expense of an extravagant hotel you choose because your spouse is with you and you’re combining recreation with business. Consider changing hotels after your business is completed to further support your claim of business expense.
Your meals can be reimbursed during business travel, but your spouse’s cannot. Use IRS guidelines for business and meal deductions and don’t try to fit your meals with your spouse into business expenses.
Combining business and personal travel requires that you take extra steps to separate business from personal expenses, but can be a great way to vacation. Use the guidelines above to begin to plan how you will keep track of expenses if you decide to combine business with recreation travel.
