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New Member
posted Jun 4, 2019 7:54:36 PM

Can i deduct a business loan that turned to a personal loan after the business closed in 2016? we had the loan in 2016 as a monthly payment. I deducted the equip last yea

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2 Replies
New Member
Jun 4, 2019 7:54:37 PM

Unfortunately, no. You're allowed to take a tax deduction for some types of interest payments, but unfortunately, personal loans and credit card interest are not among them. The tax code classifies the interest you pay on credit cards as "personal interest," a category that hasn't been deductible since the 1980s.

However, if you own a home, there is a way to convert non-deductible personal interest into a tax-deductible expense.

If you own your home and have enough equity in it to borrow against, you may be able to trade in your non-deductible credit card interest for home equity interest, which is not only tax-deductible but also may carry a significantly lower rate.

The IRS allows you to deduct interest on home-equity loans up to $100,000, no matter how you use the money. So you can potentially take out a home equity loan, use the money to pay off your credit cards and then deduct the interest as you pay off the home equity loan.

Credit card interest and other forms of personal interest were deductible on income taxes some years ago, but Congress eliminated those deductions in the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

According to the Treasury Department, the personal interest deduction was seen as encouraging Americans to spend money rather than save it; in reality, it also reduced tax revenues. That's because money that people put in savings earned them interest, which was taxable income, but if they ran up credit card debt, they could deduct the interest from their income, which lowered their tax liability.


Returning Member
Oct 2, 2020 7:57:40 AM

I remember somewhere that it said you could deduct interest expense on a credit card if it was used 100% for business, but that you couldn't deduct any of the interest if the credit card was used for personal as well - is that still true?