Connor Smart presenting Maximizing Travel, Entertainment, and Meal Deductions

Connor Smart will be hosting a presentation with Barbri on Wednesday, October 22, 2025 on Maximizing Travel, Entertainment, and Meal Deductions: Meals after the OBBBA, Documentation, Local Travel vs. Away From Home.

Businesses frequently incur expenses for travel, meals, and entertainment, and these expenditures can provide lucrative tax deductions. The rules surrounding these deductions are complex. Most recently, the OBBBA has disallowed deductions for employer-provided meals with certain narrow exceptions. Meal expenses, for others, however, are deductible at 100%, 80%, 50%, or 0%, depending on the nature of the expenditure.

To claim these deductions, a taxpayer must retain documentation that includes the name and location of the expenditure, the date, the attendees, the business purpose of the expense, and a receipt or invoice. All expenses must be ordinary and necessary to be deductible. Even with appropriate support, choosing between the standard mileage rate, actual expenses, and applicable per diem rates can be problematic. Taxpayers and their advisers need to understand the rules for deducting travel, meals, and entertainment expenses to maximize these deductions.