aircraft deductions
 

anyone know of whether you can write off part of the purchase of a new plane (in my example, a duchess or seneca) for the reason of commuting to work daily... i work in Norwood, MA and live near windham airport in CT.. anyway to write something off on this?

We had a person at the flight school buy a share of an archer once for the purpose of business. He went ffrom BVY to HPN at least twice if not three times. I remember him saying it was a business expense to be written off. So I would say yes but how to do it, well I have know idea.

yea.. but that is where it where he needed to have it to carry out business... for me, it is my transportation to and from work, in lieu of driving the hour and 45 minutes... anyone with some accounting experience out there, let me know

Aircraft Incidental to the Job
 

First of all, no accounting experience.

BUT... It sounds to me like the plane has nothing to do with the job. If your mode of travel is incidental to your job I don't think you can write it off.

If you were giving lessons out of that plane or something, I think you might have a case, but this doesn't sound like that's what's happening here, right?

nah, this was really just a personal mode of travel instead of the dreaded commute along the Mass Pike going into Boston... not fun at all

that being said, how much would it help if i put the aircraft on leaseback with the flight school at the airport... for example, i use it 4 times a week for my commuting to and from work and they use in on the weekends for the flight school

Might work but effectively you would end up renting your own airplane from the Flight school. I looked into this in 96, and that's the way it was explained to me
Not sure how much lee-way you'd have for personal use.

talked to my accountant and he said the only way to get aircraft time written off is by conducting business in it.. it can be for instruction, charter, or whatever, but it has to generate revenue

I had a friend that did this a couple years ago. He bought a Lancair in 2003 and started a corporation based around the airplane. He named the corporation after himself, "Dan Enterprises" or something like that. He owned another company and used the airplane to fly back and forth for his normal business. 90% of his airplane use was of a personal nature...not for business. I think he was able to write off 50% of the airplane cost due to tax laws in 2003. You could ask your accountant if you could shelter it in an S corporation or something similar. Don't know the rules myself.