Question

Chuy is a self-employed chef who owns a food truck. He employed a part-time employee, for $1,500 per month, to help him run the food truck. On October 1st, Chuy fired the part-time employee and he hired his 15-year old son to do the same job as the part-time employee. He paid his son $3,500 per month for the rest of the year. Shortly after firing the part-time employee, Chuy was fined $2,250 by the city for violating the city's food truck regulations. Chuy feels that these regulations are unfair and were caused becasue the fired part-time employee was the Mayor's brother. So Chuy contributed $1,700 to a campaign committee formed to recall the mayor. Chuy is on the cash method and calendar year, and he wants to know what amount of expenditures above are deductible as business expenses.

Answer 1

Nature of Payment	Amount	Deductible / Not deductible	% of deduction	Total Deduction
Payment to old employees	=$1500*9 months = $13500	Fully deductible	100%	$13500
Payment to son as part time employee to do the same job	=$3500*3 month =$10500	partly deductible	payment to son as a parttime employee should be reasonable. It should not be more than the amount Chuy would have been paid if he had employed one person from market or outside. -Hence $ 1500 per month should be deductible =$1500*3=$4500	$4500
Fine for Violation of regulation	$2250	Not deductible	0% (payment of fines are not deductible)	0
Payment to political campaign	$1700	Not Deductible	0% (payment for political campaign is not deductible)	0
Total Deduction				$18000