Indicate the amount (if any) that Josh can deduct as an ordinary and necessary b
ID: 2581309 • Letter: I
Question
Indicate the amount (if any) that Josh can deduct as an ordinary and necessary business deduction in each of the following situations. (Leave no answers blank. Enter zero if applicable.)
a. Josh borrowed $64,000 from the First State Bank using his business assets as collateral. He used the money to buy City of Blanksville bonds. Over the course of a year, Josh paid interest of $10,900 on the borrowed funds, but he received $8,300 of interest on the bonds.
Deductible amount =
b. Josh purchased a piece of land for $82,000 in order to get a location to expand his business. He also paid $6,100 to construct a new driveway for access to the property.
Deductible amount =
c. This year Josh paid $19,200 to employ the mayor’s son in the business. Josh would typically pay an employee with these responsibilities about $17,000 but the mayor assured Josh that after his son was hired, some city business would be coming his way.
Deductible amount =
d. Josh paid his brother, a mechanic, $4,950 to install a robotic machine for Josh’s business. The amount he paid to his brother is comparable to what he would have paid to an unrelated party to do the same work. Once the installation was completed by his brother, Josh began calibrating the machine for operation. However, by the end of the year, he had not started using the machine in his business.
Deductible amount =
Explanation / Answer
a) Deductible Amount = $0, no deduction will be allowed in this case as the loan is used for buying investments in bonds not for business purposes, thus the interest on loan is not deductible.
b) Deductible Amount = $0, no deduction will be allowed in this case as the nature of expenditure is capital and capital expenditures are not deductible.
c) Deductible Amount = $17,000. Out of $19,200 the amount of $17,000 is deductible because the remaining $2,200 is unreasonable or against public policy.
d) Deductible Amount = $0, no deduction will be allowed in this case as the nature of the expenditure is of capital nature. Thus the amount paid to install machine will be capitalized and deduction will be alowed in the form of depreciation over the useful life of the machine.