Cat Food And Clarinet Lessons: Weird Tax Deductions That Actually Work

1:15 pm, April 16th | by Amy Tennery

Tax day is tomorrow! Are you in the clear? Still putting it off?

In that case, you’re in luck. We’ve stumbled across a list of truly weird deductions that might actually work for you — and you’ve still got time to add them in.

No, the “Procrastinator’s Guide To Filing Income Taxes” might not be able to help you anymore. You’re in the no man’s land between TurboTax Purgatory and filing the dreaded extension. But your failure to complete things on time has afforded you a valuable opportunity: To add on deductions for random and bizarre things that you’d never have thought of otherwise.

H&R Block compiled a few favorites on its blog, as a testament to just how creative people can get when faced with tax time.

And what were some of the weirdest — totally and completely approved — deductions?

Clarinet lessons, for one, which were “allowed as medical deductions to help a child’s overbite.” Another taxpayer successfully wrote off cat food, which was used to attract cats to the individual’s junkyard, “to deter snakes.” (And with that, feral cats took their place in tax history.) One bodybuilder successfully deducted the cost of “posing oil.” Hey, you never know.

Of course, you can’t get away with any old deduction. One businessman, according to H&R Block, attempted to write off his wife’s new mink coat, which he claimed was a business purchase. Whoops.

[Block Talk]

TAGS: tax deductions | weird tax deductions