Educational Church Trip

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
March 12, 2020
2 replies
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I recently took a church-sponsored trip to Israel. The entire insured was educational. There were tours and classes all day long for 10 days. Is any portion of that trip tax deductible?

Hal_Al

Employee

No; for a variety of reasons, including that the church is not an eligible education educational institution and travel is not a qualified educational expense.

Opus 17

Employee

You can deduct travel expenses when providing service to a charity, as a contribution to that charity. You must be "on duty" in a meaningful and substantial way for the majority of the trip and there can be no, or only minor, elements of personal, pleasure or vacation travel involved.

For example, if you went to Haiti for 7 days on a church-sponsored mission trip to rebuild hurricane damaged housing, which you did 8 hours a day, that may be deductible even though you had free time in the evenings.

It sounds to me like you took a vacation, you were not performing service for a charity in a meaningful and substantial way.