Question: About ten years ago, my husband and I lent our son-in-law $250,000 to start a new business. Unfortunately, the business has been losing money, and he will be shutting down the operation. We never formerly documented the loan. Since it is very reasonable to assume that we will never be repaid, are there tax benefits for this bad debt? Answer: Since this was a personal loan and not related to your business, it is considered a non-business loan for tax purposes. A non-business bad debt is deducted as a short-term capital loss on Schedule D of your Form 1040. This is a limited deduction. You can deduct the loss from any capital gains, if any, plus up to an additional $3,000 ($1,500 if you file married filing separately) against other income. Any unused capital loss can be carried forward to next year. There are four rules to prove a bad debt deduction: 1. You must have a valid debt. Your right to repayment must be fixed and not dependent upon some event. 2. A debtor-creditor relationship must exist at the time the debt arose. You have a loss if there was a promise to repay at the time the debt was created and you had the right to enforce it. If the advance was a gift and you did not expect to be repaid, you may not take a deduction. 3. The funds providing the loan were previously reported as income or part of your capital. If you are on a cash basis, you may not deduct unpaid salary, rent or fees. 4. You must show that the debt became worthless in the year of the deduction. To prove the debt became worthless this year, you must show the following: · The debt had some value at the end of the previous year, and there was a reasonable hope and expectation of recovering something on the debt. · That an identifiable event occurred this year, such as a bankruptcy proceeding, that caused you to conclude the debt was worthless. · There is no reasonable hope that the debt may have some value in a later year. You are not required to prove that there is no possibility of ever receiving some payment on your debt. Based upon the details you provided, you may have difficulty upon audit supporting both the loan’s existence (“handshake”) and proving that the loan has become worthless (no mention of bankruptcy or insolvency). Unfortunately, it appears that you will not be able to satisfy the four rules and will not be able to claim a bad debt deduction. Planning note: It is strongly recommended that you document any loans you make with proper loan documents providing all the pertinent terms of the loan (due date, interest rate, payment terms, etc.). Obviously, it is more difficult to prove a bona fide loan (as opposed to a gift) without the proper documentation. Barry Dolowich is a Certified Public Accountant and owner of an accounting and tax practice with offices in Monterey. He can be reached at 372-7200. Please address any questions to Barry at PO Box 710 Monterey, CA 93942 or email: bdolowich@gmail. com.
https://www.montereyherald.com/2025/11/25/barry-dolowich-tax-tips-bad-debt-deduction-7/
Barry Dolowich, Tax Tips: Bad debt deduction
