Tax deduction for overseas travelling expenses

If you could get a full income tax deduction for the costs of your visits to and from your overseas rental property that could represent a very nice tax deduction. Not surprisingly though, the taxman looks to restrict this deduct as much as he can. The fundamental rule when looking at claiming a deduction for any expenses is that it must be incurred 'wholly and exclusively' for the purposes of the overseas lettings business. So the costs of travelling between different properties solely for the purposes of the rental business are an allowable deduction in computing rental profits but the initial cost of travelling from your house home to the overseas let property and back will only be allowable if the purpose is entirely a business one. This is the problem for anyone letting an overseas property. It's very difficult to convince the taxman that the cost of your flights was incurred wholly for the lettings business and there was not personal or private benefit. Deciding what your motive was is a question of fact. If you could show for instance that you travelled for the minimum possible period and spent the entire period on activities related to the lettings business you should look to claim a full deduction for your travelling expenses. This would also include taxi fares etc to and from the airport. In order to substantiate this you should be looking to have detailed support for the activities undertaken. If by contrast you combined your lettings business activities with a few days holiday, it makes sense to go for an apportionment of the costs of travel according to the proportion spent on activities related to the letting (eg meeting agents/tenants or undertaking repairs). If the business was only incidental (eg briefly checking on the property and spending the rest of the time as a holiday) no deduction should be claimed