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Tax Question for Regional Pilots

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Snaab

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 6, 2005
Posts
372
Ok, here goes: I'm a regional f/o. I've usually done the basic tax return while CFIing, etc., and did so last year, my first as an f/o. I've heard people here and there say that I should be able to deduct a lot because of my job. As I understand things, the basic deduction is $5,000....My deductions don't add up to nearly that, so do I just take the standard $5K and do my return as normal? Also, is it worth $200+ for a airline specialty CPA to do my taxes, even though I make hardly anything?

I'm not too tax-savvy and am all ears for advice and insight from anyone familiar with in this area. Thanks a lot!

-Snaab
 
Snaab,
Shut up and pay your taxes! Unless you took accurate receipts of everything related to aviation the past year then you are only cheating yourself and our country if you lie. (After this year I plan to keep accurate records) Our boys need bullets and explosives to kill terrorists. Don't be that guy who lies and tries to get lots of money back. That money could be used to armor a humvee or sharpen the knife of one of our soilders.
-UNCLE SAM
 
Unless you own a home or have some other large deduction, you probably won't itmeize. I was able to deduct about $3000 in per diem for the year. The standard deduction is more like $7000
 
standard is 5000...

per diem can be a couple thousand...
student loans can be a lot...
but yes, usually it's the mortgage and property taxes that make itemizing worth while.

If you are going to take the standard deduction, you won't need turbo tax basic. You can just follow the directions on the forms. Should take you 30 minutes tops.

Tex
 
Consult with your Godfather first...

Ok, here goes: I'm a regional f/o. I've usually done the basic tax return while CFIing, etc., and did so last year, my first as an f/o. I've heard people here and there say that I should be able to deduct a lot because of my job. As I understand things, the basic deduction is $5,000....My deductions don't add up to nearly that, so do I just take the standard $5K and do my return as normal? Also, is it worth $200+ for a airline specialty CPA to do my taxes, even though I make hardly anything?

I'm not too tax-savvy and am all ears for advice and insight from anyone familiar with in this area. Thanks a lot!

-Snaab

PM me or call me and I'll see if I can help out.
 
Last edited:
You do not need to Itemize to deduct Student loan interest. (max you can deduct is $2500). Anyways jsut read the form and follow line by line.

If you make under $52,000 Adjusted Gross Income, you can E-file for free, using a free tax site aproved by the IRS. You can find them on Irs.gov website.

I used www.freetaxusa.com was done releatively quickly and came within a couple bucks of what I had figured onthe paperform.
 
www.taxact.com worked for me last night...it was straight forward, cheap (<$20 i think) and took less than 20 minutes to complete. I didn't go through all my overnights and per diem. I deducted dry cleaning, union dues, and uniforms. Got a decent amount back I guess...I wasn't about to spend hours on end fretting over the endless amount of crap I might try to deduct and not have any receipts or accurate records to show. I just wanted to get it over with already!
 
Do we have to have receits for everything we bought on overnights or can we just add up all the time away from base times our perdiem rate and use that?
 
There are a couple of ways of determining your per diem deduction the simplest is to use the transportation industry worker standard rate of $52 for CONUS and $58 for OCUNS. See IRS publication 463 for the rules on figuring your deduction. The Publication can be found on the IRS website www.irs.gov then go to the forms and publications link.
 

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