Tax Question About Writing of Items for School

Legally hell no. Will you get caught, probably not. Sorry but homecoming queen is NOT required for any field of study. If it causes you a financial hardship just refuse the title.

Writing it off would save you next to nothing compared to the cost of the dress. You do get that, right? That "writing off" something on taxes does not save you much unless it is an extremely expensive item or many smaller ones added up?

Just checking. But it's a moot point because no, you cannot write this off. It's nothing to do with your education.

I hope you use a tax preparation service because you may be trying to write off other things that are just not legal to take off. Find out the facts from a source other than Mamapedia.

I'm pretty sure something like that can not be "written" off, as it is a social, extracirriculur expense, not an academic one.
You may be able to get a cheap dress on ebay, and you can always make DIY gold shoes out of a pair of thrift store heels with gold fabric paint and/or glitter.

You can't write the dress off. You can't write off pens, pencils or notebooks either. College textbooks ... yes you can. Uniforms you're required to have ... yes you can. Sometimes you can write off computer programs, laptops and graphing calculators ... but it is VERY dependent on your major and if they are "required" for your degree.

Stuff for extracurricular activities ... nope nope and nope.

I'm a current college student too and believe me if I could write off more of the expenses for college ... you can bet I would.

Congrats on the nomination. Sounds like fun.

You can only deduct EDUCATIONAL expenses that are REQUIRED for your degree and paid to the SCHOOL. Unless you homecoming nomination is a degree requirement you're out of luck.

You have to buy the dress in order to be in homecoming, not in order to go to the school. You could decline the nomination, and still earn your degree, so no go there.

Also, just FYI, you can't claim school supplies. You can only claim specific items that were explicitly required by the school/course. Yes, we all use pens, and paper, but unless the university provides a specific brand in exchange for a fee charged in conjunction with tuition, you can't claim it.

Tuition, yes. Office supplies, no. Homecoming dress, definitely no.

Here's the specific language of the tax code http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc457.html
Tuition and fees (and student loan interest, but you aren't in repayment yet, right?). That's it.

No, it's an optional school social event. Nothing really to do with education.

I actually had no idea you could write off stuff for school like pens, etc...and I was an accounting major!

No you can't write off the dress.

No, you can't write it off, but you might see if you're the same size as last year's homecoming queen. Someone is bound to have a dress that will work for this; you may not need to buy a new dress at all. Another thought is that a bridal salon may have a slim-fitting ivory gown on clearance (especially if you fit in sample sizes). I remember doing things like that in college (best memory, so much fun!), and never bought a dress, just borrowed. Have fun at homecoming, and congratulations!

Nope. I'm sorry... That is not a write-off ( to my tax knowledge)

You need to make sure you are under care of a qualified tax attorney before you start something like this or the IRS will be onto you in a heartbeat.

Make sure you are clear via your tax attorney first.

Well, Congratulations on the nomination!

But, no, I doubt you can "write that off"!
And even if you could, it's not like you'd get all of the money back--just a small refuction in what you pay/ or a tiny increase in your refund.
Sorry. :(
Good luck if you run!

No you cannot. Sorry. :( This is not considered an educational expense.

I don't think that dress would count as a tax write off. It isn't a necessary college item like books and a computer.