Can you deduct the cost of cat food and litter? Maybe, but not for the cats you love most.
The Tax Court has decided a case in which the taxpayer deducted various expenses of caring for cats. Normally we wouldn’t expect such a deduction to be allowed. Not all of the costs related to the taxpayer’s own pets, however. She also incurred costs in providing foster care for some 70 to 80 feral cats on behalf of a charitable organization that traps such cats so they can be neutered and then, following a period of recuperation, returns them to the wild. Perhaps having a bit of fun with the case, the court said some of the deductions were disallowed “categorically,” but held that others must be allowed because they were incurred on behalf of a qualified 501(c)(3) organization.
The taxpayer in this case is a lawyer and represented herself before the Tax Court.
