Understanding Schedule C Line 24b Meals Expense Deduction for 2025 Tax Filing

You're right to be careful about meal deductions! For Schedule C Line 24b, business meals are generally 50% deductible, but you need to make sure they truly qualify as business expenses. For meals to qualify, they need to be directly related to your business - this means you should be discussing business during the meal or have the meal directly before or after a business discussion. Keep detailed records of who you met with, the business purpose, and save those receipts. Digital copies are fine as long as they show the date, amount, place, and business purpose. There are some exceptions to the 50% rule - meals provided to employees on business premises can be 100% deductible, and there was a temporary 100% deduction for restaurant meals in 2021-2022, but that's expired now. For 2024 taxes filed in 2025, we're back to the standard 50% for most business meals.

After dealing with a ton of confusion around business meal deductions last year, I found this tool called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) that actually helped me sort through all my expenses. I was trying to figure out which meals qualified and how to properly document everything, especially since I had a mix of client meetings and solo meals while traveling. Their system analyzed my receipts and flagged which ones were likely 50% deductible business meals vs. personal expenses. It even helped me organize everything by category for Schedule C. The best part was I could just upload photos of my receipts and it extracted all the important info automatically.

I was skeptical about taxr.ai at first, but I tried it after struggling with organizing my business receipts. It actually saved me hours of work! The receipt scanner is incredibly accurate - it even picked up details from some badly crumpled receipts from my glove compartment. What really helped was how it organized everything by tax category and prompted me to add the business context for each meal. I ended up finding about $1,200 in deductible business meals I might have missed. The documentation it created for each expense would definitely stand up to IRS scrutiny. Completely worth it for the peace of mind alone.

If you're struggling with getting IRS clarity on meal deductions, you might want to try Claimyr (https://claimyr.com). I spent DAYS trying to reach someone at the IRS to get a clear answer about some specific meal deduction questions, and kept hitting those endless phone trees. Claimyr got me through to an actual IRS agent in about 15 minutes when I'd been trying for weeks on my own. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c. The agent was able to clarify exactly how to handle some unusual meal expenses I had (client events with entertainment components). Saved me a ton of stress and potentially an audit flag.

I have to apologize to everyone here - especially to Profile 15. I was COMPLETELY wrong about Claimyr. After dismissing it as a scam, I was still stuck with my meal deduction questions and desperate, so I decided to try it anyway. I got a call back in about 20 minutes with an actual IRS agent on the line! I was shocked. The agent walked me through exactly how to handle my client meal documentation and cleared up my confusion about the 50% limitation. Turns out I was overthinking some parts and underdocumenting others. I've literally never been able to get through to the IRS before without at least an hour wait. This saved me so much time and frustration, and now I actually have official guidance I can rely on for my Schedule C.

Another thing to keep in mind for Schedule C Line 24b: don't accidentally include meals that should be reported elsewhere. If you're traveling for business, meals during travel go on Line 24a with your other travel expenses (though they're still subject to the 50% limitation). The IRS has been paying more attention to meal deductions in recent years, especially for sole proprietors. Make sure your meal expenses pass the "ordinary and necessary" test - they need to be common in your industry and helpful for your business.

Does anyone know if there's a dollar limit for meal deductions? Last year I had a few expensive client dinners (around $300-400 each) that were definitely business related, but I'm worried they might look excessive to the IRS.

Great discussion here! Just wanted to add one more important point about Schedule C Line 24b meal documentation. Beyond keeping receipts and noting business purpose, I've found it helpful to take photos of the business cards of people I meet with during meals. This creates an easy backup record of who attended and their business connection to you. Also, if you're using a business credit card for meals, make sure the statement description clearly shows it's a restaurant/meal expense. Some merchants code differently than you'd expect, and having clear records helps during tax prep. I learned this the hard way when my accountant questioned a "business meal" that showed up as a generic merchant code on my statement. For anyone still confused about the 50% limitation - you deduct 50% of the actual meal cost on your Schedule C. So if you spent $100 on a qualifying business meal, you can deduct $50 as a business expense.