Entertainment Facility: Perk for You, Your Net Worth, and Your Employees

Imagine this: your Schedule C business buys a home at the beach, uses it solely as an entertainment facility for business, pays off the mortgage, and deducts all the expenses.

Now say, 10 years later, without any tax consequence to you, you start using the beach home as your own.

Is this possible? Yes. Are there some rules on this? Yes. Are the rules difficult? No.

Okay, so could you achieve the same result if you operate your business as a corporation? Yes, but the corporation needs to rent the property from you or reimburse you for the facility costs, including mortgage interest and depreciation—because you want the title to always be in your name, not the corporation’s name.

The beach home, ski cabin, or other entertainment facility must be primarily for the benefit of employees other than those who are officers, shareholders, or other owners of a 10 percent or greater interest in the business, or other highly compensated employees. In this situation, you create

• 100 percent entertainment facility tax deductions for the employer (you or, if incorporated, your corporation), and
• tax-free use by the employees.

The employee facility deduction is straightforward. It has three splendid benefits for the small-business owner:

1. You deduct the facility as a business asset.
2. Your employees get to use the facility tax-free.
3. You own the property and can use it personally without tax consequences once you no longer need it for business use. (Note that when you sell, you will have a gain or loss on the sale and some possible recapture of depreciation.)