Originally Posted by Beerman92

Taxes are based on cash accounting. So if by complicate your current return you mean you paid cash in a prior year, took a deduction because you paid the cash and now this year when you are going to receive cash back you don't want to pay tax on it then just refunding the ticket and buying a totally separate ticket sometime this year for the same amount will not incur any additional tax as you will have income from the refunded ticket and an offsetting expense from the new ticket.

If you just want to refund the ticket this year there is nothing complicated about it. You report the refund as income (technically a negative expense) and pay the taxes you would have paid the prior year when you took the deduction for what turned out to not be an expense.

If you want to buy refundable tickets in one year, take the deduction, refund the ticket the next year and not pay any taxes then you can't legally do that. Or everyone would do it and never pay any taxes.