Hi , Guys, when I fill my tax return, I got a question, can I claim the CFA registration fee as tuition deduction in 1040? if it is reimbursed by company, does it make a difference?
If it’s reimbursed by your company u dont pay anything… deduct it and failing l1 will be the worst of your problems 
It would fit on form 2106 - Business expense - Continuing education. Although if your company is paying for it, it is unethical to claim a deduction. http://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch27.html#en_US_publink100034566
Definitely if your company reimburses you, it will not only be unethical to claim it; it will be illegal (fraud/perjury) to do so. If you have a private business and CFA studies is relevant to it, you can deduct CFA expenses as a business investment. You will need revenue to bill it against. If you are in the industry and this is education required for your job (i.e. you’re an analyst and you need it to get promoted), then it is deductible. If it is a career change move (like you’re in IT and you want to manage money rather than software), you can’t deduct it. Some CFA expenses may qualify for the Lifelong Learning Credit. However you’re out of luck if you earn more than $58,000 AGI. If you take Stalla or Schwesser, that might qualify. Whether the CFA registration and books qualify is debatable. Note that the Lifelong Learning Credit is a tax credit, which is better than a deduction because it directly reduces your tax as opposed to simply reducing your taxable income.
“Some CFA expenses may qualify for the Lifelong Learning Credit. However you’re out of luck if you earn more than $58,000 AGI. If you take Stalla or Schwesser, that might qualify. Whether the CFA registration and books qualify is debatable. Note that the Lifelong Learning Credit is a tax credit, which is better than a deduction because it directly reduces your tax as opposed to simply reducing your taxable income.” Careful! You need to attend a qualified educational institution for this credit. While Lifelong Learning is more elastic than the Hope Credit, I cannot find clear language that fits the CFA Institute under it. Utilize at your own risk. While the CPA I work with said to just do it, I am disagreeing since after reading the IRS publication, I am still not clear or convinced on it. In most cases you would need a 1098-T from the institution for these credits. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p970.pdf
I dont see why it wouldnt apply to the Lifelong Learning Credit…
Because he’s not paying for it… his company is. He is only laying out the $$$
Lifelong Learning Credit does require being in an undergraduate or graduate degree program “OR may be enrolled in any course of instruction at an eligible school to acquire/improve the student’s job skills during the calendar year.” That is language that is vague enough that Stalla and Schwesser might just fit in… but you’d definitely have to check. I’d bet there’s a profit making opportunity for organizations to combine the schooling and the CFA fees into one bundle, register you for the exam with the fees you’ve paid to them, and then let you take the tax credit for all of it. Basically, they make extra money by formatting the charges in a way that you can take the tax credit (again, assuming your employer doesn’t reimburse you - though if it’s only a “general reimbursement,” maybe that would just be money taxed at the marginal rate).
Ask the new Secretary of Treasury.
abacus Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ask the new Secretary of Treasury. He did what everybody else was doing and justified it by saying that everyone else was doing it, so he thought it must be an appropriate interpretation. So, all we need is for everyone else to take the tax credit, and then we could justify it if we took it. SOPH doesn’t say anything about collusion to defraud the federal government being unethical, does it? I mean, Standard 1a wouldn’t seem to disallow collusion to break the law, if breaking the law had the effect of nullifying the law, right?
i think if your company reimburses you, they deduct it on their taxes not you.
This is a direct quote from IRS publication 970 concerning the Lifetime Learning Credit. "Qualified Education Expenses For purposes of the lifetime learning credit, qualified education expenses are tuition and certain related expenses required for enrollment in a course at an eligible educational institution. The course must be either part of a postsecondary degree program or taken by the student to acquire or improve job skills. Eligible educational institution. An eligible educational institution is any college, university, vocational school, or other postsecondary educational institution eligible to participate in a student aid program administered by the U.S. Department of Education. It includes virtually all accredited public, nonprofit, and proprietary (privately owned profit-making) postsecondary institutions. The educational institution should be able to tell you if it is an eligible educational institution. " http://www.irs.gov/publications/p970/ch03.html I would certainly be cautious.
do it, i am. f the irs, i owe them a crap load of money for this past year.
So what do you guys think of deducting it if the company is not footing the bill?
If good ole Timmy and half of the cabinet nominees can get away with it…why can’t the average Joe… When in doubt, deduct