Tax question about per diem

[bnlearle]

Can a photographer claim per diem? Here's what's happening...

I have a wedding booked at Cap Ferat in the South of France and a wedding in Aruba. I would like to claim per diem for them as the trips will be entirely business. I recently heard that self-employed individuals cannot do per diem. I was told that I should be able to write off 50% of my meals (whoopdeedoo:)), my airfare and possibly my hotel stays. If I can't do per diem, can I at least claim all of the other things seperately? My only reason for thinking I might not be able to is that the guy I was talking to is a tax man. I'm not so sure if he was just saying that because it was hard for him to believe that I was going to these vacation spots purely for business.

Any advice from longer term full time photographers would be greatly appreciated!

[AussiePup]

I dont think that per deim rates are allowed for foriegn travel. Typically the rates are set by the IRS are based upon a certain city or loctation. And I have not seen any guidance on foriegn cities or locations. The IRS is usually pretty tight when it comes to expenses related to foriegn travel, however if the travel is less than a week (departure to arrival back to the US) or if less than 25% of the time away from home is personal (+75% business related)then generally the entire trip is deductable (meals are still only 50%). This is from code section 274(c)(2) for those that are interested

For more information on travel costs see IRS Publication 463 at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p463.pdf

by the way I am also a tax guy (CPA):)

[John Mireles]

I checked with our bookkeeper about this. There's two ways we expense meals. When we're traveling for a wedding, meals are treated as a travel expense and we receive a 50% deduction. If I'm shooting a larger production for advertising and I'm buying meals for an entire crew, then the meals are treated as a production expense and written off 100%.

John