Over the years several COPA
members have asked questions about what flight training expenses are deductible
from your personal income tax.
Revenue Canada allows flight training deductions as "tuition fees." Naturally Revenue Canada also has strict rules as to what qualifies as tuition fees.
Revenue Canada states, “You can claim tuition fees paid to any of the following
institutions…an educational institution in Canada certified by the Minister of
Human Resources and Skills Development Canada for courses (if you were 16 or
older at the end of the year) to develop or improve skills in an occupation.”
This means that only training towards an occupation qualification is tax
deductible – in other words you can only deduct training towards the Commercial
Pilot Licence and higher taken at an approved school. Most flight schools in
Canada are approved, but it pays to check before you start training.
Some COPA members have asked if they can use their own aircraft while doing
flight training towards a Commercial Pilot Licence and then deduct the costs of
operating their own aircraft. Unfortunately the answer is, no.
Basically here is the reasoning Revenue
Canada uses to allow deductions for flight training on school aircraft and not
your own aircraft. The whole issue is that these expenses must be considered
tuition fees, as defined above.
Revenue Canada will allow the deduction of flight instructor time and aircraft
rental, as long as the aircraft is operated by an approved school and can
therefore be considered tuition fees.
They do not consider you flying your own aircraft as tuition fees – that would
be quite a stretch!
For more complete information have a look at the Revenue Canada pamphlet
entitled “P105E
Students and Income Tax”