BA (in common with many other European carriers) adds a fuel surcharge on award tickets. In addition, departures from UK airports are subject to Air Passenger Duty (APD). BA discloses fees here...

http://www.britishairways.com/travel...e/public/en_us

There are extensive discussions of this in Miles Buzz, notably in this thread...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...versus-aa.html

...which we probably do not need to duplicate here.

When are you making the payment? If you need the extra credit card activity soon, you might be better advised to make an estimated tax payment against your 2009 taxes (IIRC you can do so until 15 January 2010) so you'll get the overage refunded when you pay your 2009 taxes (i.e., this year) rather than having to wait until you pay your 2010 taxes in 2011.

I think you're thinking of the federal deductibility of state income tax overpayments, which some IRS rulings (not regulations), starting with 71-190, limit to a reasonable amount. There is no corresponding concept for the creditability of an overpayment against the tax you're overpaying. If you overpay your federal income tax by a billion dollars, you get a refund of a billion dollars.

I just did some math on this scenario because I was curious since I under estimated my quarterly taxes for 09 and still have some time to make more on my 4th QTR payment. I used my SPG card as the card to use and the redemption of transferring miles to AA. And assuming you, meaning me, are not a status member with AA, and upgrades are removed from the equations.

Let's say you owed $160,000 in taxes. With the 5k bonus on 20k transfers (transferring several times) from 160,000 points, you'd have 200,000 AA miles.

I just did a redemption flight check for 2 people from ORD>LAS>ORD and a normal rate check for the same flight. It was $3086 for first/biz class and $1662 for economy non restricted. And points wise unless I'm figuring it incorrectly, those are 80k SPG for the econ flight and 160k SPG for the first/biz flight. The redemption ratios for the SPG points come out to be 2.07% for the economy unrestricted and then 1.93% for the first/biz tickets.

So if the official payments site charges 2.35%, and if you are able to deduct all of that as a business expense, let's say at 35%, that takes the convenience charge of the official payments site to 1.53%.

And if the airline miles are "tax free" under Announcement 2002–18 (which reminds me the spg could be better than the plum if the rebate increases your tax liability), then you have come out ahead - 1.93%/2.07% - fee 1.53% = 0.40/0.54%. And do that a few years or also use your spg for more miles and you'd also be on your way towards lifetime gold (or platinum^)!

Did I figure that out correctly? I guess then a question would be whether you would actually spend that same amount of money on the flights.

Now I gotta figure out if it's worth it and also double check with my accountant to make sure it's not gonna come back to bite me

Why would it be deductible as a business expense?

If you are a business owner (I am) it should be and might be in other cases as well. I have to ask my accountant if it applies to me.

https://www.officialpayments.com/fed...93!726980945#5

Edit oops, that was the link for the personal payments, and it still says tax deductible!

When I pay my business owned real estate taxes with a credit card, the convenience fee is considered a business expense under 'taxes" and becomes deductible. This has been cleared by my CPA who signs my return.

I think gallardo means the expense reduces the business's taxable profit, not that it is deductible from his personal income. The tax "savings" in this scenario is a fiction unless the business actually reports taxable net income.

Yes I mean it is an expense that I [think I] can expense on my corporate return

That makes sense - if you're charging business taxes the fee should be a deductible expense on a business return.

If you're paying individual taxes, then the fee may be deductible on an individual return, but only to the extent it (plus unreimbursed job expenses and investment expenses) exceed 2% of adjusted gross income.

I just talked to him and it is expensable on my tax returns. However, not in 2009, so any fees I pay for a 2009 Q4 quarterly tax payment would be expensed on my 2010 tax return since I am on a calendar year.

I probably will do it though, even if I don't use all of it for airlines. I checked some SPG properties and there are some great deals on category 2 hotels with redemption ratios of more than 3%.

That would be awesome, but I don't see an amex logo?

In the FAQ's, it says they do not take AX, only MC + Visa for airline rewards.

I may start using this to pay some corporate taxes as the fee is a deductible business expense. It does say that you can use it to make quarterly estimated 1040ES and 941 payments but only two times a year if I'm reading it correctly.
If the fee is 1.95% for income tax payments, that's less than the 2.3% my county charges for property tax payments with a CC.

Thanks paytaxes for this tip. Awhole new way to earn airline miles for trips!

The 1.95 does sound nice, I would just need to find a visa/mc that has good airline rewards

Should be 2 per quarter, so 8 times a year.

That's not difficult, but I would also watch to see how the other service providers react to the price competition, and also for promotional offers as we approach prime personal income tax return filing season.