Who gets to “write off” coffee? You can’t deduct food as business expenses.
Also, pot is an intoxicant. You’re being stoned, or drunk, at work is usually frowned upon.
The comparison to coffee is disingenuous. It’s like comparing coffee to chocolate - chocolate has stimulants in it, but only an idiot would compare the amount of chemical effect to that of a more powerful stimulant like caffeine.
For you, I’m sure a joint would put you on your ass, high as giraffe ears, for several hours. Presumably during this time you’d be powerless to do anything but eat funyuns and watch Adventure Time on mute while you listen to lo-fi versions of Phish deep cuts.
Xanax is an intoxicant. Do you know how many people are on antianxiety medications? Those people work too.
Cannabis is a medicine. Just because you can’t handle it doesn’t mean I can’t. For me, I get more physically effected by coffee than I do cannabis- admittedly not much more, but still more.
Also you definitely can deduct food and coffee as office expenses, same as pens or file folders.
Are you in the US? Unless you’re self- employed, you can not (legally) deduct food - including coffee.
If you’re playing that game, maybe you’ll get away with it, but maybe you won’t. If you do, you’d better have your paperwork ready - receipts for everything you’ve deducted - because if you’re audited not only will you be fined and have to pay back taxes on ask of the stuff you’ve been deducting against the rules, but they’ll also question every legitimate deduction.
Now, if you have a medical prescription for pot, you can deduct medical expenses - although, if you’re itemizing, you have to be spending a shit-ton on pot to equal the standard deduction. You can’t take the deduction and itemize your expenses.
I am self-employed, and I have a qualified tax professional do my returns.
Self-employed is different. You can deduct all sorts of things the majority of employees can’t.
So let’s go back to coffee and pot. Coffee isn’t deductible because it’s a drug people are addicted to; it’s counted as food. If you’re eating edibles, then… maybe? If they’re, like, pot brownies with some nutritional content, almost certainly. If they’re gummies, IDK. Maybe they count as food as much as candy does. Alcohol has calories, and counts as food, probably as much because it’s so socially ingrained as part of a meal any other reason.
If you’re smoking or vaping, though, a better comparison would be cigarettes. Cigarettes and vapes are not deductible, even for self-employed. And your Xanax example - again - is deducted as a medical expenses, which only counts if you have a prescription.
Another example: you can’t deduct homeopathic remedies, or other pseudo-science supplements. You can’t deduct anything that you don’t have a prescription for as a medical expenses. You can’t deduct acupuncture, because it’s not officially recognized as a legitimate medical treatment. You can’t deduct massages, unless you can get a doctor to actually prescribe you a message, like for PT.
So, going back to your original post: for self-employed, coffee is deducted as a food, not a medicine, and comes out of a daily allowance. Cigarettes can’t be deducted as a food or a medicine, and so aren’t deductible. And unless you have a prescription for pot, or are buying edibles that you’re deducting out of your meal allowance, you can’t deduct it.
It goes in office supplies duh
You can write off half a meal a day but I ain’t putting pot on my taxes
I’m a self employed handyman and medical cannabis patient. If it weren’t for the medical cannabis, I wouldn’t be able to do my job. Bet your ass I take my pot as a deduction on my schedule c, and I take coffee, and I take lunch. I deduct shit that I have no business deducting, and the only taxes I even pay are to get that sweet, sweet child tax credit.
Odds are the recently defunded and understaffed IRS has better shit to do than comb through my poorly kept books just to bust me for taking an extra couple grand that maybe I shouldn’t have.
If your job is reviewing weed, sure.
Also, with it’s federal classification, I’d hesitate to create a paper trail.
I mean, writing off coffee for work already sounds pretty risky lol
Though now I want the opposite, if someone has a start up that will provide me free edibles at the office HMU lol
The startups that give you drugs aren’t worth it. At absolute best it’s a work hard play hard culture.
I suppose it might be easier in some areas than others. Like, an extreme might be artist vs surgeon. Truck driver is probably right out. Musicians are good. I mean in that same vein could a wine taster, for instance, write off all the wine all the time?
Maybe if you work as a pot shop buyer
Seems unlikely. Seems more likely it could be a medical expense if you have a prescription.
