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Shopping while traveling

June 11, 2015 04:22PM
How many shops would you, personally, have to do while on vacation in order to feel comfortable writing off the mileage and hotel stays? I'm wondering if there are specific guidelines in the tax code, if anyone has ever discussed this with a tax professional, or if anyone just wants to share their personal thoughts.
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June 11, 2015 05:12PM
Personally, I would have to do enough shops to show a reasonable profit after writing off the travel expenses.

Also, the IRS requires the majority of your days be spent conducting business that has already been arranged in advance. You can find the IRS guideline here: [www.irs.gov].
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June 11, 2015 05:48PM
Thanks. That is very helpful (although not what I wanted to hear, of course!).
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June 12, 2015 04:30PM
I did not see anything in the IRS guidelines about booking work in advance. Did I miss it? Can you clarify?
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June 12, 2015 07:04PM
I disagree about having to book the work in advance. The IRS wants you to have an intent to make money. If your trip were to coast $1000, and you only found $10 of work and wanted to deduct the entire cost of the trip, there would be some hard questioning if you were audited. There are lots of people on this Forum who do road trips and accept shops as they go along the route. The key idea is that you are running a business, and you have to intend making money, otherwise it is not a business. Are there days when you might lose money - if you are like me, the answer is yes. But at the end of the year, I make money running this small business. Generally, the IRS looks at a rolling 5 years and wants you to make money in 3 (it might be only 2) of those years in order to avoid a lot of questioning.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008
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June 13, 2015 02:48PM
I personally do not shop while on vacation. If I am driving to random places and not spending time with my family who are seeing the sights or enjoying the scenery, what is the point of being on vacation. Also I don't have access to my scanner, PC or printer.

I know a lot of people do shop while vacationing, and I always look before I go, but never have.

~~*~~*~~*~~ kal ~~*~~*~~*~~
Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just forget to load the film.
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June 13, 2015 04:11PM
I used to think that if I picked up a pizza delivery shop while visiting Austin, TX from Colorado, I could write off the whole trip until my wise oldest son pointed out that that was not what the IRS says. Now, if I saw that a MSC was offering a hefty fee to travel to Albuquerque, NM to do a bank shop, I would stay with my said son and write the mileage for the trip off as a business expense. But when I visit my sister in CA and do a Chipotle shop while I'm there, I don't get to write off the airfare. I just get to have a free lunch and make a few bucks. Make sense?

Mystery Shopper since 1998; Author of Make Money Mystery Shopping available on Amazon in the Kindle Store.
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