Necessary refers to a
"necessary expense" as defined in
IRS Publication
463. Necessary is one of the tests that must be passed in order for an
employee
business expense or
travel expense to
be tax deductible. IRS Publication 463 defines a necessary expense as one
that is:
...helpful and appropriate for your business. An expense
does not have to be required to be considered necessary.
For flight crew tax returns
and airline tax preparation purposes that means an expense is considered
necessary if it is considered helpful for airline
flight crew employment tasks. Furthermore, the aviation employer does
NOT have to require the expense for it to be a legitimate
airline-related employee business expense.
A great example of this is a calculator that an airline first officer keeps in
his or her flight case for performing weight and balance tasks. The
airline employer may not require that pilots carry a calculator, but the
calculator could easily be determined to be necessary based on the above
definition of a necessary expense.
To learn more about how to determine whether or not an
airline employee business expense is tax deductible, click here to visit an
EZPERDIEM.COM
Article that describes the methodology an
airline pilot or flight attendant should go through deducting a given expense.
The EZPERDIEM.COM Expense ProcessorTM
makes it simple to calculate airline pilot and
flight attendant tax deductions for a given tax year.
See also,
ordinary expense
and personal expense.