Hello All
Has anyone attempted and either been successful or not on deducting mileage to and from house sits on your federal taxes?
Thanks
My first instinct was to fall about laughing but then I thought, no, I’ll do a bit of research.
Deductible travel expenses while away from home include, but aren’t limited to, the costs of: Travel by airplane, train, bus or car between your home and your business destination . (If you’re provided with a ticket or you’re riding free as a result of a frequent traveler or similar program, your cost is zero.)Nov 4, 2021
Problem is your not going to a business destination. It’s a non paid mutual agreement. It looks like you’ll have to pay that tax bill after all. Nice try though.
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If you are house-sitting for a fee, it may be deductible (assuming you are referring to US taxes).
Unless in the US it’s different than in Germany, as soon as you get paid for something you also have to pay taxes…
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As others have said, in the US, you can only deduct expenses against income earned from the activity. So if you aren’t getting paid - then you can’t deduct.
Now if you declare income from the activity you can declare the travel expenses against the income - the last time I had consulting income I reported the income and the expenses on Schedule C.
It’s tax return season and I have got to get my returns into the IRS. I have researched the internet to try work out what deductions I can apply for as a House Sitter based in the US. I have found bits and pieces during a Google search. Has anyone got any advice?
Thank you.
There’s a couple of threads about US tax returns & this was the most recent
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You can’t claim any deductions for house sitting with THS because there is no income. Even if you have a job you can’t deduct commuting expenses for getting to and from your job except in certain instances, such as if you’re an outside sales person going from client to client. If you are an employee or an independent contractor for another pet sitting service that pays you an income, you can deduct certain expenses.
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I’ve wondered the same thing. I found this thread and dug deeper in the research. As it turns out, according to this information from the IRS (US), you can value your earnings, and then deduct your expenses. I hope this helps: https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420
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Great info, thanks
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Hello, @nortonj I wanted to wish you a warm welcome to the forum community and thank you for your contribution to this thread. You can also use the spyglass to search for other topics and discussions.
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If you value your earnings does that mean you could hypothetically end up owing more tax?
Have you done more research into this?
Have you been able to successfuly do this in the past?
Per my tax guy it is questionable. So I decided not to push it.