If you're doing crew training are any of your expenses deductible? Hotel/to/from are paid but food and other random things like car rentals are not... any way to do use some sort of daily allowance deduction on days in training?

Keep ALL of your reciepts. The ones that have to do with you being forced to be there by the company, ie food etc, are the ones you need to highlight and keep till tax time. Those are the ones to run through to write off. You can even write off your dry cleaning and haircuts for the job.

what about for initial training? private, instrument, comm, etc?

Nope.

Also, if you make enough to take more than the standard deduction you should consider staying where you are instead of flying.

Training to enter a new profession is not deductible. Training to improve proficiency in your existing profession is deductible. If you are working on PVT, COM, IFR, none of that is deductible. If you are employed as a pilot and want to work for SWA, the cost of getting the 737 type rating is deductible.

Actually this is not totally correct.

Entering a new profession for a recent college grad is not deducatable. However, if you are a career changer, there is a significant tax CREDIT for career-change vocational training (much better than a deduction) which will put a large chunk of change right back in your pocket. There was a recent thread on this subject.

rick, can i turn you into a midget and keep you on a leash for whenever i have questions?

If I get my CFI/II/MEI then get a type in a citation - can I deduct that type so I can teach?

Ok, I am intending on changing my profession, however, in the meantime I have been obtaining my ratings PVT, Instrument, Commercial, CFI. Can I deduct these expenses? I bought a Cessna 150 to obtain my ratings in...can I deduct any of the expenses?

Might as well throw one more on there.

If you are currently working as a CFI and get an MEI, would that be tax deductible.

Thanks.