Are expenses incurred on a medical mission trip deductible?

[kathymu]

Items such as airfare, hotels, inoculations, medications, food, visa

[Fern · Accepted solution]

Yes, expenses incurred while on a medical missions trip would be deductible if the following conditions are met:

• Generally, you can claim a charitable contribution for travel expenses incurred while you are away from home performing services for a charitable organization. However, you cannot have any significant element of personal pleasure, recreation, or vacation in the travel.

• You can take a charitable contribution deduction for your travel expenses if you are on duty in a genuine and substantial sense throughout the trip. However, if you have only nominal duties, or if for significant parts of the trip you don't have any duties, you can't deduct your travel expenses.

• You can deduct your contributions only if you make them to a qualified organization. Most organizations other than churches and governments must apply to the IRS to become a qualified organization.


See https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch24.html#en_US_2015_publink100034100.

[Carl]

What do you define as a medical mission trip? Are you a medical professional that donated your services? Or was this trip deemed a "way of life" sustaining trip to provide medical care to you?

[tam3]

How do I enter this in TurboTax?

[LinaJ2020]

You would enter them under Charitable donations as cash contributions.  Here are the steps:

In TurboTax online,

• Sign in to your account, select Pick up where you left off
• In the search box, search for donations and then click the "Jump to" link in the search results.
• Follow prompts

@tam3