Instructor employment expenses

[Skymark]

I'm working as a part-time class 4 instructor and no expenses (medicals, etc) are covered by the flight school . Does anyone know what can I claim as "employment expenses" on my income tax?

[Bede]

I'm working as a part-time class 4 instructor and no expenses (medicals, etc) are covered by the flight school . Does anyone know what can I claim as "employment expenses" on my income tax?

Are you paid as a contractor for services (ie you submit your hours every month and no deductions-CPP, EI, tax are taken off)? If yes, you can deduct driving to airport (track expenses), cell phone, "uniform", part of your house as an office, etc.

If you are paid as an employee (ie a contract of services) you can't deduct anything.

[lownslow]

It's awfully hard to legally be a contractor in a position like that.

[Skymark]

Are you paid as a contractor for services (ie you submit your hours every month and no deductions-CPP, EI, tax are taken off)? If yes, you can deduct driving to airport (track expenses), cell phone, "uniform", part of your house as an office, etc.

If you are paid as an employee (ie a contract of services) you can't deduct anything.

I'm an employee. I'd prefer to be a contractor, but can't. And, yes as an employee you can deduct expenses, if you had expenses to do the work.

Info for line 222 on Income Tax form:

You can deduct certain expenses (including any GST/HST) you paid to earn employment income. You can do this only if your employment contract required you to pay the expenses and you did not receive an allowance for them, or the allowance you received is included in your income.

My contracts says I have to pay my own medical expense, so that can be claimed. I'm asking what other expenses other instructors have claimed.

[digits_]

Partially cell phone usage, partially the use of your car to drive from your work location to a secondary work location. For example to drive from an FTU to a different airport if a customer has a plane there and hired you via the FTU. You can NOT claim home - FTU travel costs as an employee.
Headset would be a grey area. IPAD and foreflight subscription, possibly paper maps or CFS publications etc if you have to pay for that yourself (god I hope not).

[Lotro]

Pretty sure your employer needs to issue you a T2200 in order to be able to deduct anything.

CRA isn't super generous with deductions for people who have regular employment/jobs. If you're a contractor though - write off everything! HA!

[digits_]

Pretty sure your employer needs to issue you a T2200 in order to be able to deduct anything.

Ah yes. Forgot to mention that.

[Skymark]

Pretty sure your employer needs to issue you a T2200 in order to be able to deduct anything.

I have T2200, but it doesn't cover what can be claimed. I guess it's up to pilot discretion.

[Lotro]

CRA has some pretty good information here:

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency ... enses.html

and here

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency ... -2016.html

If you want to get creative in your submission to CRA I'd suggest using an accountant. In my experience, they tend to be more knowledgeable about how CRA feels about creativity than the average person.

[gustind]

In addition to the things states above:

As a contractor at, car related expenses to/from your job sites are generally allowed. I used to save all my gas receipts for the year, oil changes etc, and tallied them up. Let's say $1000. Note the KM on your car at year beginning and at year end. Note how many times you've driven where. Let's say you live 20km from your main work airport and you drove there a whopping 12.5 times this year. 400km of your car divided by the year's 1000km is .4 or 40%. You claim 40% of your car related expenses for self employment that year.

Are you required to have access to internet, maybe have a phone for work purposes? That's an expense. Keep your receipts.

Ever taken your student out for coffee and paid for it? That's an expense. Keep the receipts.

Your headset? Can't really fly without it can you? Damn right that it's an expense. However given the cost of it and the fact that it might depreciate over several years, it will be categorized differently.

Yes to medicals, the $55 fee, pens to fill in PTRs, if you maybe have a home office space (doubtful as a PT Class 4), cost of advertising yourself etc,. Any cost you incur to be a Class 4 Flight Instructor is generally an expense. You can even go as far as receiving additional training like a float rating, multi, aerobatics, tailwheel or IFR in order to better your knowledge and be more marketable and yes, it's an expense of doing business. So, write it off. Just keep the receipts.

When in doubt, hire an accountant. You'll be able to write off their services the next year as a business expense anyways .