The actual cost meal deduction refers to one
method which may be used for taxpayer's to write off meal expenses from their
taxes. Flight crewmembers can write off their
meals and
incidental
expenses (M&IE expenses)
while traveling for their airline employment on
IRS Form 2106
(titled
Employee Business Expenses).
If a flight crewmember were to use the actual
cost meal deduction to deduct M&IE expenses, the pilot or flight attendant would
have to keep documentary evidence such as a receipt and accurate records
for all of their M&IE expenses while they were traveling for work. Because
of the complications associated with this method of deducting M&IE expenses, the
IRS allows an alternate method. M&IE expenses can be written off via a
method that is sometimes referred to by tax preparers as the
per diem deduction,
that generally gives airline crewmembers a higher deduction than the
actual cost meal deduction. EZPerDiem.com specializes in calculating an instantaneous, online per diem deduction for crewmembers