When are personality development courses recognised?
Courses aimed at personality development not only impart professional knowledge but also skills useful for personal development.
In such cases, tax offices often do not recognise the costs as business expenses.
However, the tax office must accept such courses and seminars, from which you personally benefit, in the following cases:
- The course must be primarily tailored to the specific needs of the profession practised.
- The group of participants must be homogeneous, i.e. the course participants must have similar professional interests due to the nature of their work.
It is not necessary for all participants to belong to the same professional group. What matters is that the course participants have similar professional interests due to the nature of their work.
The group of participants is therefore also considered homogeneous if the participants belong to different professional groups but hold management positions in their respective fields and are interested in the courses and seminars due to these leadership roles (BFH rulings of 28.8.2008, BStBl. 2009 II p. 106 and 108).
Participation in seminars that mainly serve personal development is considered predominantly private. Consequently, the seminar fees are not deductible as business expenses or professional expenses. The Düsseldorf Finance Court recently ruled in this sense (judgment of 15.12.2021, 10 K 2085/17 E). Previously, the Thuringia Finance Court had similarly denied the deduction of costs in a similar case (judgment of 13.11.2019, 3 K 106/19).
The Düsseldorf judges' ruling was based on the following facts: The claimant, a prospective self-employed IT consultant, attended the seminar "The Millionaire Mind Intensive" with the modules "Guerilla Business Intensive", "Train the Trainer", "Never work again", "Freedom Trader Intensive" and "Enlightened Warrior".
The events were intended to show participants ways to become more financially successful in life. The module "Never work again" taught how to replace income from active work with passive income. The seminar and ancillary costs amounted to over 20.000 Euro.
According to the judges, the expenses are not deductible as business expenses or professional expenses because there is no sufficient connection between the seminar content and the subsequent consultancy work. Rather, the seminars attended were essentially events aimed exclusively or at least partly at changing one's own views and attitudes.
