Lesson horse question

[FootPerfect]

A few people have approached me and asked if I would give them lessons. I have a nice horse who would do well as a lesson horse. So I've been thinking about it and was wondering, if you set yourself up as a buisness and have lesson horses, are their expenses deductable as part of the buisness? I am in the process of working with my lawyer to get started with all this and have been kicking around the idea of getting a lesson pony to work with the smaller folks. (Kids)

Thanks,
M

[JohnDeere]

Yes.

[Renae]

Also keep in mind giving lessons will cause you to loose your USEF Amateur status and that you should get insurance.

[Bluey]

Are you paying taxes as residential or agricultural?

You may want to check if you can at all go commercial where you are.
If you can get agricultural exemptions, if you are not now, that can save much towards the insurance you will have to add to any such as having clients.

Most people find that, unless they are a larger operation, just to give a few lessons a week doesn't pay the cost to arrange everything to be able to do it, but you may find differently.

[Renae]

You may want to check if you can at all go commercial where you are.
If you can get agricultural exemptions, if you are not now, that can save much towards the insurance you will have to add to any such as having clients.

Unfortunatly in some areas of the country horse businesses are being taxed as regular commercial, not agricultural businesses. We are fighting that in our county right now, the county is trying to quadruple my employer's property taxes after it re-assessed all of the horse farms in the county as commercial that had always been agricultural (http://www.presspubs.com/articles/2009/07/02/st_croix_valley_press/news/doc4a4d40f37a226194876101.txt).