Can I Deduct the Cost of Dog Food and Rawhide Chewies?

Posted on June 18, 2012 at 9:25 am by Bob Cesca

Because the Romneys kinda did that with their horse.

The Romneys declared a loss of $77,000 on their 2010 tax returns for the share in the care and feeding of Rafalca, which Mrs. Romney owns with Mr. Ebeling’s wife, Amy, and a family friend, Beth Meyers.

Yeah, I get it. It’s a business expense. But holy hell. Around 84 percent of the nation earns less than $77,000 per year.

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_TLHIXVS2CHDJNWYPZJIZ5NNZ3A Robert

    I am going to rename my 14 year old Chihuahua Rafalca. At her age she’s got some expensive medical care coming up and I could use the write-off.

  • Brutlyhonest

    Holy crap I think the system may be rigged to favor the super rich. sonofabitch

    Even better: The IRS won’t generally target big asshats because enforcement costs too much (idiot celebrities who fail to file is a different story sometimes).

    Many years ago, I received a letter from the IRS informing me I had failed to report some income (a couple thousand dollars) and unless I paid the tax due plus interest quickly I was going to be fully audited (the letter inferred it would not end well for me.) I was in the middle of a PCS transfer so my records were not available. I called a friend who was a CPA for some “not poor” people to ask for advice. He had me fax him the IRS letter and he wrote them a response that I had reported the income and probably paid too much tax on it. If the IRS did not cease and desist hassling me he would take them to court and they would probably have to pay me (paraphrasing). I pretty quickly received a response apologizing for the confusion. That’s when my friend explained that the IRS goes after little guys with zeal because most just pay what they’re told to since they have neither the time nor the resources to fight back. BTW, I had actually correctly reported the income and paid taxes on it, but that wasn’t really “important” for the letter to be effective.

    • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

      I have heard stories similar to this. Also, I have heard that if you have a small business (e.g., an s corp) and if you go more than one or two years without claiming a profit (doesn’t matter how much of a profit), the IRS will target you for an audit. Most s corps like this are VERY small businesses (I had one for 5 years) who have very few assets. Anyone with more money, etc forms an LLC, has investors, etc. So the IRS definitely targets small businesses instead of big ones.

  • trgahan

    Clearly Romney is being “Taxed to Death”

  • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

    You want to know what adds insult to injury in this case…the horse is HIGHLY successful and is headed to the Olympics in London. Yep, a successful horse but that mothereffer gets a write off. Nice

  • bphoon

    Business expense my ass. I have three rescue dogs at home who are totally dependent on me for their support. Had I not adopted them, they would be a drain on the public purse since all three were in no-kill shelters when I found them. Tax deduction, anyone?

  • D_C_Wilson

    Kind of starting to see why Romney didn’t want to release his tax records.

    I wonder if part of that “loss” is the wear on the roof of Romney’s car.

    http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/415194/june-12-2012/mitt-romney-s-blue-collar-equestrian-pastime?xrs=share_copy