Igor Chudov wrote:
- quote -

Expenses associated with the production of taxable income are deductible
on Schedule A, but only if you itemize, and only as miscellaneous
itemized deductions. Misc. deductions are an annoying category because
they are only deductible to the extent they exceed 2% of your adjusted
gross income (bottom line on front page of your tax return). So even if
you could justify books as valid investment expenses, it's unlikely
you'll be able to get any useful deduction from them. If you google
"investment expenses" you'll find guidance directly from the IRS about
what is and isn't deductible.

Having a personal corporation is a bit meaningless for tax purposes
really - you can't use one to turn personal expenses into business
expenses. But if books about finance represent a valid business expense,
then it would be deductible against the income of the business. I'm in a
financial business and have books that I use in my practice, so I have
my library on my balance sheet. Though except for subscription-based
stuff they're capital assets (depreciation, Sec. 179) rather than
expensed items.

As someone said, you'll get better answers on this kind of thing at
m.t.m. I thought I'd post because I'll bet many on MIFP spend something
on personal finance books, periodicals, etc.

-Tad

On Mar 18, 10:50*am, Igor Chudov <ichu...[at]algebra.com> wrote:
- quote -

You should post such questions to misc.taxes.moderated.
Not only will you be talking to people who know tax law
better, but it will also not be off-topic for the
newsgroup.

To answer your question unauthoritatively, generally no,
financial books are not tax deductible on personal
returns. However....

- quote -

Yes, that would be better.

Technically, you might also get away with a misc
deduction on your personal tax return for unreimbursed
employee expenses. But that is limited to the excess
of 2% of AGI.

FYI, if you look at line 23 of Sched A, it does say
"invesment" for "other expenses". But if you look at
the instructions, you will see that that means "your
share of investment expenses of a regulated
investment company".

I am a moderately active investor. I would like to know if purchases
of financial books are considered deductible investing expenses.

I also have a personal corporation. Perhaps it would be cleaner to buy
such books under the corporate account?

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