Travel Expense Deductions Ruling
Travel Expense Deductions Under Private Letter Ruling 9151014
This information is provided by the Office of International Education for your convenience. We are not legal tax advisors. Please consult an income tax advisor or company for tax laws and tax liability not covered here.
Please note
Belmont busines students offer assistance in filling out tax
forms through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program.
Please contact Brad Childs, 460-6485,
childsb@mail.belmont.edu or Marilyn Young,
460-5551,
youngm@mail.belmont.edu for more
information.
Also note that the links to forms on this page require Adobe Acrobat Reader (available here).
If you are an F-1 or J-1 student, and a nonresident for federal income tax purposes, whose course of study in the U.S. will last less than one year you can deduct so-called travel expenses from your U.S. source income. These deductions will substantially reduce -- and may even eliminate -- your federal income tax liability.
The travel expenses that you can deduct include your airfare to and from the U.S., hotel accommodation and dormitory or apartment rent, daily commutation expenses to the University (by private car or public transportation), books, periodicals or photocopies purchased in connection with your study, and a special per diem allowance for food.
If you are in the U.S. to study for a period of less than one year (i.e. less than 365 days from your date of entry until your date of departure) you may deduct these travel expenses under Internal Revenue Service Private Letter Ruling 9151014 of September 19, 1991. This ruling determined that students who stay in the U.S. less than one year should be treated as if they were on a business trip, and should therefore be allowed to take travel expense deductions.
There is, however, something that you should know about an IRS private letter ruling before you claim travel deductions based on ruling 9151014: IRS can at any time change their mind and decide that their ruling was in error. If they do so, only the individual tax payer who originally requested the private letter ruling is immune from the consequences of IRS's change of heart. Everyone else who acted on the basis of the private letter ruling must pay any extra taxes due, plus interest, because of IRS's reversal. (Some comfort is provided, however, by the statute of limitations, which prevents IRS from reopening a tax payer's past return if it is more than three years old.) If you want to be certain that a future IRS reversal can not affect you, you must yourself request a private letter ruling from IRS. IRS will be happy to oblige for a fee of $3,000.
There is, however, no prospect in sight of an IRS reversal of Private Letter Ruling 9151014, so there is little reason not to take advantage of it. To do so, you will need to complete IRS Form 2106 and enter the the results on Schedule A of IRS Form 1040NR.
