Wouldn’t it be nice if you can get a tax deduction for taking golf lessons to improve your golf game?
You’ll be glad to know that you don’t need to be Tiger Woods and playing on the PGA tour to claim a tax deduction for your golf lessons.
In fact, even your weekend duffer can, with the right tax planning, claim a tax deduction for learning to swing a club like Jack Nicklaus.
How so you ask?
Let’s say you are a lawyer (or other business professional) who plays 20 rounds of golf a year. Of these rounds, you play 15 times with clients and you properly document these outings for purposes of the entertainment deduction. The remaining 5 rounds are personal outings.
Rather than embarrass yourself on the golf course in front of your clients, you decide to take six golf lessons at a cost of $900.
Because you’re an avid reader of our articles, you’ll know that you can deduct a portion of the $900 that’s attributable to the business rounds of golf you play. In other words, you can deduct $675, or 75%, of the cost of your golf lessons.
Now, we realize you probably won’t just take our word for it and you want to know why you are able to claim this deduction.
In a nutshell, the golf lessons improve the business related skills you need to network with clients.
Being a decent, or better yet, a scratch golfer, can benefit your business prospecting in the following ways:
- Helps you gain access to new and different client prospects;
- Gives you more business prestige with your prospects and clients, which can improve your business; or
- May just maintain the skill you need on the course to network with your prospects and clients.
So the next time you shank that ball wide right off the tee and ask your clients to give you a mulligan, consider signing up for some golf lessons. After all, you just may be able to get Uncle Sam to subsidize the lessons.
At Gedeon Law & CPA, we’re always reviewing the tax code to come up with creative ways our clients can reduce their tax liability. Feel free to contact one of our tax professionals to discuss how we can do the same for you.
