Bruins, IRS face off over team meal deductions

The Boston Globe reports:

A team of professional hockey players can run up a pretty big meal tab — so big, in fact, that Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs is fighting the Internal Revenue Service in US Tax Court for the right to deduct the full cost of feeding Zdeno Chara, Tuukka Rask, and their teammates during road trips.

The case may involve burly athletes and what court documents describe as the “large portions” they consume at team meals on the road, but it could have broader implications for businesses that send workers off-site and foot the bill for food and beverages.

“A business retreat where all employees are required to dine together would be very similar,” said Philip Garrett Panitz, a tax attorney at Panitz & Kossoff, a law firm in Westlake Village, Calif. “The Bruins need to show that this is an ordinary and necessary business expense. I think they have a good argument.”

If more IRS workers had played hockey...