Off-Highway Fuel Tax
 

Does anyone file there state income taxes to get a deduction for boat gas? Just talked with my CPA and he said only if I use my boat as a business. I'm in Mass. HIGH LIFE

Don't know about Mass., but believe Michigan allows it...my tax guy told me to save receipts this year.

I have the form for NC. Just heard about this last year.
Haven't organized my receipts yet, but plan to do so.

I don't believe you have to use your boat for business.
I think it has to do with part of the gas tax being specifically for roadways, maintenance etc, so it's a refund of that.

I looked into this last year when dean brought it up. The boat has to be for business use.

Check with your state DMV. For IRS purposes your boat must be used for business/commercial fishing, but here in Virginia there is a seperate form you file with DMV and it can be used even if you are not a business.

http://www.dmv.state.va.us/webdoc/pdf/ts217.pdf

I'm pretty sure you can apply for a rebate of the FEDERAL ROAD tax as well. Farmers do this as a matter of course in their business; it goes back to when the tax was started. They wrote the wording of the tax so that only gas used on government roads was taxed ... farmers were the main business back then and made sure they were taxing everyone else back then and not themselves.

You don't have to use the boat as a business to ask for rebate of the ROAD TAX if you can prove you used the gas off-road.


Here's my prediction for the future of taxes in the high tax states: taxes on most services ... except for banking services ... guess who is making the rules these days? :p