Business Discount for Services

[roberikson]

My wife is a CPR instructor. She taught a class to the staff at a  camp for disadvantaged children.  For the amount of  people trained she normally would charge $1200. She only changed them $600. Can she claim a $600 loss as a  business expense?

Rob

[DianeW777]

No.  Unfortunately the IRS (or Congress) believes our time is worthless when it comes to taxes. A deduction of lost income when it was never reported as taxable income in the first place is not allowed.

And you cannot report your income "estimating" your own labor, either.  

[roberikson]

Thank you.

[Rick19744]

The reason is that you can't take a deduction unless you have a true outlay of cash or you actually recognized income (and paid tax on it) that was never collected.

In your case, you never recognized anything other than the $600.  You never paid tax on that other $600 since you are most likely on the cash method of accounting.

Has nothing to do with the value "lost".