If you have a foreign or American student living with you, you may be able to take a charitable deduction for some of the expenses you incur. You must have a written agreement with a qualified organization to have the student live in your home in order to provide the student with educational opportunities, the student must not be your dependent, and the student must be attending class full-time in any grade up to the 12th grade in the United States. You can deduct up to $50 per month of qualifying expenses for each full calendar month the student lives with you. Qualifying expenses include the cost of books, tuition, food, clothing, transportation, medical and dental care, entertainment, and other amounts you actually spend for the student’s well-being. But if you have a student living with you under a mutual exchange program, in which your child will live with a family in a foreign country, you cannot take a deduction.
Out-of-Pocket Expenses
You can deduct your out-of-pocket expenses for services you provide on a volunteer basis. Some examples include the cost of buying and cleaning uniforms, travel expenses while you are away from home performing services for a qualified organization, and the cost of using your personal vehicle in your volunteer work.
You can claim a deduction for travel expenses away from home if there is “no significant element of personal pleasure, recreation, or vacation in the travel”. You will need to weigh the circumstances in each trip, and you may need to separate out any expenses that are purely person. The travel expenses you can take as a charitable deduction include air, rail, and bus transportation; out-of-pocket expenses for your car (see below); taxis and public transportation fares; lodging and meals. Since the travel is for charitable purposes and not for business, the expenses are not subject to the limits for business-related expenses.
If you use your own vehicle to drive to and from the volunteer work, you can take a deduction for your actual expenses for gas and oil, or you can take the standard mileage rate. Under either method, you can add parking and tolls to the amount you claim.
You cannot deduct the value of your services or your time while you are performing volunteer work.