This was sent to me a while back and others might find it interesting...
I'm not an accountant, but I do own my own biz plus have dabbled in the real estate market as well. I have gone round and round with various tax professionals on this, so here's my 2 cents...
Unless somebody has real world IRS audit experience with personal plane used for biz type of cases, their opinion is all you're going to get, and you know the saying about opinions...
In my mind, here's what I've settled on. In order for something to be deductible as a biz expense, the IRS says it has to be "ordinary and necessary" along with "reasonable". That phraseology allows the IRS to call any expense into question. You can deduct the cost of your trip to NJ, but can you defend it to a human sitting across the desk from you? That’s what I use as my litmus test. In other words, if you are trying to deduct $575 for a trip to NJ to fix a toilet that you could have paid a plumber $75 to fix, the IRS is going to have a problem with that, because it doesn’t make good business sense.
One of the things the IRS will look at is the cost of an airline seat for the same trip. If Southwest flies there for $49 each way, that will be one strike against you. So if you’re going to say you just found out this morning that you have to be in NJ for a 2pm meeting and the airline seat would have cost $1200, then you can deduct your $575 for the trip in your plane. But you better be able to prove that being there at 2pm was both "ordinary and necessary". There are obvious advantages to flying yourself, but it has to be within reason. You can take into account commercial airport waits, a hotel room vs being able to come home same day, and no rental car or taxi because you landed 2 miles from your property. All those things would be on your side if an expense got questioned.
Last thing I'll say about using a personal airplane for biz use... EVERYBODY I've ever asked says that it makes you a target for an IRS audit because the dollars are usually big and it's something very easily used for pleasure. I've never seen any hard evidence, though, just opinions.
A final thought about your question on having an LLC own the plane. There is no right or wrong answer, because everybody’s in a different situation. But what I’ve found through talking to many people is that having a corporation own the airplane is not the liability “magic pill” isolator that a lot of people think it is. The problem is if you’re going to be the only one flying it, if something should happen, you will be sued as the PIC anyway, regardless of who owns it. If the plane rolls away from a tie down spot when you’re 100 miles away from it, I’m sure you’d be named in the lawsuit because you should have triple checked your tie down chains. Especially with your assets, the opposing lawyer will surely find a way to pull you into the lawsuit. Unfortunately, this is the world we live in.
Just more food for thought…