I am an Angel Flight Pilot and use my company aircraft for flights. I was telling a client recently about my adventures and he asked a question to which I did not have the answer; perhaps one of you do.
He was very impressed with the program and wanted to sponser a flight by paying for my company aircraft time (rental) during the flight. Is that possible? As a practical matter, little other than my time is deductable to me, it seemed like a good idea. Would he effectively rent the plane from my corp, and I would do the flying? I am assuming that my company would take the rental fee as income,
Would it be tax deductable to his company, since he is renting a plane for an Angel Flight Mission?
Perhaps another avenue would be to have this person just give a donation directly to Angel Flight. They are in need of dollars for administrative costs as well.
If SOMEONE ELSE pays for your flying expenses, Angel Flight or no, you may be flirting with “commercial use,” almost certainly so if you log the time. I would check with your local FAR guru or call AOPA legal services and describe the intended scenario.
The FAA made an exception for tax deductions for pilots who donate their own aircraft/flight time to charitable causes. In any other case their interpretation of what constitutes “flying for compensation or hire” is amazingly broad. For example, I had considered donating flight time to our local police dept., I would have received no reimbursement or compensation of any kind. Despite this, according to the fellow I spoke with at AOPA legal services, the FAA would have considered it a commercial operation if I so much as logged a tenth of an hour of flight time in that operation.
The donor would be better off writing a check to Angel Flight to support their organizing efforts rather than directly paying for your flight expenses.
another avenue would be to have this person just give a donation directly to Angel Flight
I checked with Angel Flight on that one. They are thrilled to accept donations, but Angel Flight can not then, turn around and rent the aircraft.
If an FBO or other a/c owner could rent their aircraft it would be deductable to the renter as a business expense to the company renting the aircraft. There would be 4 beneficiaries
FBO’s would rent more a/c time
Pilots w/o a/c could be Angel Flight pilots
More Angel Flight’s flights would be available to serve more people.
More pilots who don’t own their own aircraft, would be donating their time.