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Thanks for the A2A, Sean Kernan.I did not know how to answer this question so I asked a lawyer friend of mine (someone who has been in legal practice for over 30 years). All credit for this answer goes to him.The most clever law that he has seen:26 USC 280A26 U.S. Code § 280A - Disallowance of certain expenses in connection with business use of home, rental of vacation homes, etc.Subject to certain restrictions a person, usually someone rich, can rent out a home for up to 14 days and not be required to report any of the income. That can be a huge sum for people with mansions.Needless to say, my friend is a great lawyer and knows a lot about the subject and its practice.

I am an alumnus twice from USC so I do have that bias but I was also a UCLA Extension student for 1.5 years between degrees at USC but I have never been a UCLA undergraduate nor sleep on campus there. I have continued to be a guest lecturer many times at both universities and was also born and raised in Los Angeles. It is my opinion that USC compares very favorably with UCLA for the following reasons that I would like to share with you now. I will assume that you have read the other answers or opinions to this question, so I will try not to repeat those facts or opinions if I agree.No other American city is as blessed as Los Angeles to have two very top notch, top-25 universities in their backyard only 15 miles from each other, unless you consider Houston, Texas with Rice University and the University of Houston, but I cannot share anything about them. The fact that both USC and UCLA are so similar and compete in so many areas only makes each of them stronger but it does create a city divided which is more fun as everyone has one more option.SIMILARITIES:USC and UCLA share the same Southern California city and both enjoy the same incredible year round sunshine and access to the beaches, mountains, concerts, theater events, culture events, professional sporting events, etc. that makes Los Angeles such as world class city.Both universities excel academically as high profile research universities and in recent years have been ranked in the US News & World Report as either tied or one right after the other. So which university is better, really depends on your major, department or school as both USC and UCLA have excellent nationally ranked individual programs.USC has a reputation as a rich, white kids school but the reality is the average household income is only about $4,000 more per household than the families from UCLA. You can see just as many BMWs and Mercedes parked in Westwood as the USC Campus. As for diversity, USC typically ranks number one for decades as having the most international students. UCLA is the university that Jackie Robinson starred in multiple sports before he personally broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, yet once the Supreme Court struck down Affirmative Action, their university has had trouble attracting and retaining African-American male students who are not athletes according to past news reports and a video that was made on campus by UCLA African-American male students which you can find on YouTube.com.Athletically, both universities have excelled on the gridiron, field and court. Both USC and UCLA have won over a 100 national championships, which only Stanford can also say that. USC typically dominates in football and is an NFL factory whereas; UCLA has a long track record of championships in basketball and having professional players in the NBA. UCLA boasts about being the first to win their 100th national championship, but when that happened 22 of those were in sports that USC does not field a team and when you consider the fact that the NCAA does not award Football national championships and USC claims 11 of those that apparently do not count, you can which see how this math seems very lopsided.Both universities have a long history of supplying tons of athletes to the Summer Olympics representing the United States and other international countries. In fact, an athlete for USC has won a Gold Medal in every Summer Olympics since 1912, before UCLA was established in 1919.TUITION COSTS:USC is a private university funded by high tuition dollars, fees and a large endowment. UCLA is a public university, part of the University of California system of 10 total campuses and is funded mostly by the state of California, which is not available to out of state students who pay tuition costs that are closer to a private university. Thus for students outside of California the initial tuition cost between the universities is not that disproportionate.USC’s tuition cost is currently the 12th highest in the US and it was recently announced that it will increase again next year, possibly making it the most expensive university. That being said, USC also offers the most financial aid of any university and about 70% of its students are on some form of financial aid. So the top 30% of USC students pay a lot of money that they can afford, but the rest of us, me included, only paid a small fraction of that amount to attend a wonderful university that I would not otherwise be able to afford. It honestly cost me less to attend USC due to my incredible financial aid package, than if I would have attended UCLA and most people cannot believe that, but it is true.STUDENT LIFE:The undergraduate student population at UCLA is almost 30,000 whereas USC is almost 19,000 yet both campuses has a total student population that is very similar around 43,000 thus USC has more students enrolled in Masters and PhD programs. A huge difference that I experienced is the Faculty to Student ratio at USC is a very low 9:1 whereas across town it is almost double at 17:1. I recall having a physics lab at USC as an undergraduate that only had the three of us and they did not cancel the lab. I doubt that would have happened at UCLA.SOCIAL LIFE ON CAMPUS:USC Football is a religion when it comes to the Trojan Family. Tailgating on campus or across the street in Exposition Park where the world campus LA Coliseum is located is a huge deal and rite of passage for members of the Trojan Family. It is hard to find a Trojan who has not been to at least one game, if not all of them, while a student because USC Home Games in the fall is when the Trojan Family comes together every other weekend and these tailgate events are made to be so much fun and convenient as to you just walk around. Good or bad, UCLA Football plays its home games at the historical Rose Bowl in Pasadena,which is almost 30 miles away from their Westwood Campus. No matter how much you may love that bus ride as a student on Saturday mornings, it simply cannot be the same wonderful experience as leaving your dorm room and walking across the USC campus on Game Day. This is one of the reasons that USC Football attendance has always been higher on a typical game day at the Coliseum than at the very beautiful Rose Bowl.UCLA students and alumni are clearly more into Basketball and Pauley Pavilion on campus has been the home of 11 National Championships in Men’s Basketball (USC has the same amount in Football) and their fans that show up to the “Den” are very passionate. I don’t buy into any fans from either school, that claim to support their school team but have never gone to see them play live in person and I hear that too much from UCLA students who don’t ever go to home games. An obstacle for UCLA Baseball fans and their team just won their first National Championship in that sport in 2013 (USC has 12), is that the baseball field is also not on their campus but across the 405 freeway at Veterans Administration facility, thus it is hard to get UCLA students to come out for a ball game.LOCATIONS:When USC was established in 1880, the city of Los Angeles was almost 100 years old but only had a population of just under 11,200 residents, of which 25% were said to come out to the grand opening of the university. The reality is that USC and Los Angeles grew up together. At the time, USC was located outside of the city boundaries and over decades morphed into a 226 acre campus. Initially the North University Park community that was built around the campus had very large residences and craftsman style homes that housed prominent downtown families and ambassador residences. A lot of those houses are now being preserved by USC if they are not already being used as sorority or fraternity houses along 28th street, also called the “Row”.If you are in the middle of campus in the plaza next to the statue of Tommy Trojan, then you are only two, maybe three blocks in any one direction from the edge of campus, thus you never feel overwhelmed by the size of USC. The smaller class sizes at USC make learning more personal. I rarely had a large lecture class while I was a student so I never felt like I was just a number but rather a person. UCLA classes are much larger and too many times taught by Teacher Assistants and maybe that is ideal for some types of students but I have heard many people complain about the lack of personal touch. UCLA students always know that they are on a huge campus on a hill, where sometimes it is best to take a bus to your class on the other side of campus.At one point in time, USC was offered the opportunity to move it’s campus out of South Los Angeles to the location that is now where Pepperdine University is located in Malibu overlooking the Pacific Ocean. After years of debate, the USC Alumni convinced the Board of Trustees to pass on this wonderful offer, as USC has been and will always be in the heart of the City of Los Angeles.Over time as the city expanded and the population exploded, the neighborhoods surrounding USC became far less desirable, thus poorer families moved in and crime and local gangs became an issue that USC continues to struggle with but a lot of positive efforts have been made. That being said, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) compiled stats on crime on and near all American campuses only a few years ago, it was UCLA that ranked as the most dangerous US campus and USC did not rank in the top-25 on that same list. This notoriety did not go over well with the administration at UCLA who challenged those crime stats and ever after the FBI was asked to review them, their claim still stood. Thus there is an issue of perception versus reality when it comes to the level of crime on both of these campuses.UCLA was established in 1919 along Vermont Avenue and was called the “Southern Branch” to its big brother at Cal Berkeley and only offered 2-year teacher training degrees. A decade later in 1929, a large parcel of land, 419 acres was donated to create the Westwood campus near Bel Air. These days UCLA enjoys a more prestigious location in the city of Los Angeles but USC alumni always stress their proximity to Downtown and those business contacts.CAMPUS:Given that UCLA is in a better part of town, it might be controversial and bias to state that as an Architect myself and past student at both campuses, USC has a better, more attractive overall campus. It has been very difficult to keep track of all of the new buildings and great architecture that has been created on campus in the past few decades. The great examples of architecture are not limited to one quadrant of the campus which is the case across town in Westwood. The amount of new buildings that were torn down and demolished to make way for better, more modern educational facilities is amazing. Most UCLA alumni that I know have never ever toured the USC campus, so how could they honestly compare campuses? This opinion will only become more clearly apparent next year once the 15-acre $700 Million USC Village is completed across Jefferson Blvd. This will be the largest development project ever in South Los Angeles and add about 10% more acreage to the campus and almost 20% more campus space.Whereas, UCLA has a wonderfully design landscaped area called Dickerson Plaza and Court that has Royce Hall on one side and Powell Library on the other, and extends to the Law School on one end and the track on the other, this is the best looking and only great area on campus that I have experienced. It is shown on many TV shows and commercials all of the time and deserves to be showcased but beyond that area of the campus, the rest is a series of miss-matched very large ugly institutional buildings that are not well maintained, I noticed when I was a student and guest speaker there.SCHOOL SPIRIT & TRADITIONS:I am very aware that UCLA students and alumni have school spirit and they will tell you that they bleed baby-blue and gold. The even have an annual “Beat USC” bonfire when it is not stopped by their own protesters (true recent story). Attending UCLA and graduating from there is a big deal so you do see them showing their school pride with their t-shirts, sweatshirts and license plate frames all over town. Until recently a UCLA basketball ticket was tough to get and I recall in the 1980’s when I was in high school, Westwood Village was the happening cruising spot in Los Angeles and everyone would go there to see and be seen. Back in the day, even USC students used to go to Westwood Village for a night out to watch movies or get a meal but those glamorous days are in the past and this area is not as vibrant with too many retail vacancies these days and it feels like a ghost-town at times.The difference is that at USC, we take this school pride thing and our traditions even more seriously and don’t just talk about the pride of being a member of the Trojan Family, we clearly show it off everywhere, all of the time. The percentage of students and alumni that consistently display their school pride on and off campus is substantially higher at USC if you spend any time on either campus and live in Southern California. This has a lot to do with USC being a private university and the feeling of coming together as one Trojan Family that is constantly ingrained in your head from your very first day as a freshman. Both universities have school pride but USC simply takes it to a completely different level. There is a lot of talk that USC is like a cult or a mafia and that is because it is more or less true and this extreme passion for one’s alma mater is sometimes hard to explain.ALUMNI CONNECTIONSA big difference that even most UCLA alumni would point out is the strength of the Trojan Family Network. As great a university that UCLA is, it is not known for its strong alumni contracts whereas USC is internationally known for that. The USC Alumni Association sponsors 66 clubs around the world and its motto is "Worldwide and Lifelong". The UCLA Alumni Association from their website lists 24 total alumni clubs reaching as far north as Seattle and East to Colorado. USC almost has many clubs outside of the United States than UCLA does in total. USC has the far superior alumni network compared to most if not all US universities. If you don’t believe me, than read the alumni connections chapter of Harvey Mackey’s book “Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty: The Only Networking Book You'll Ever Need”.So I think that USC compares very favorably to UCLA, especially when you consider the fact that 41% (Number one of all Pac-12 schools) of former USC undergraduates made a donation back to their university after graduation compared to only 9% of UCLA graduates. Apparently the USC undergraduate experience is better by quite a lot and they seem to be 4 times more happy and/or generous.USC is clearly not the best fit for everyone and neither is UCLA. Different people love each of these universities for their own personal reasons and the rivalry between them only makes each of them better.OCTOBER 2016 UPDATE:The initial Wall Street Journal / Higher Times Education ranked over a 1,000 US Universities and they claimed that USC is the #15 best university in America. Sadly Cal Berkeley and UCLA did not make the top-25…

The easy answer is that you cannot have two Kings in one castle and that castle is called the City of Los Angeles, Hollywood and the Entertainment Capital of the World. With only the exception of maybe Houston, Texas where you have the U of H and also Rice U. sharing a city, where else do you have two major universities, which share a major city and are only separated by about 14 miles? This automatically creates tension and world-class competition across all of the country. There are college rivalries all across our great country but no where else are there two universities that are both truly outstanding by most all measures and they happen to share the very same geography with no natural boundaries or border.USC and UCLA are always fighting because they are actually more similar than different and thus are typically competing in basically everything in life. Beyond the obvious head to head competition of our athletic programs, we compete academically between departments and majors, in national rankings and also compete in the Boardroom later in our careers.SIMILARITIESLos Angeles is a very large city, in a very large state, but our two very impressive universities are almost next door to each other. Despite the fact that USC is a private school established in 1880 and UCLA is a public school, part of the University of California system and opened in their Westwood location in 1929, their current enrollment is similar at 43,000 total students. Both universities are very selective with UCLA only accepting 18% of its applicants vs. 16.5% at USC in 2016.ACADEMICSIf you look at the current US National Review ranking they are both tied at 21st. The main difference is that the UCLA used to rank in the high teens in the US National Review, with USC ranking much lower in the 50's, however that was decades ago. Since then USC has skyrocketed to 21 in the national ranking while UCLA has fallen back to 21, which does NOT go over very well with the Bruins since they've prided themselves as academically being the best and cheapest, which they can no longer claim.COLLEGE SPORTSThough college basketball is an extremely popular college sport on TV and one that UCLA has dominated in the past, college football actually brings together 6 times more live spectators in one venue per game and it is the sport that truly takes over a city when the team is at the top nationally. USC Football has been the team that has both dominated UCLA in head to head competition and has been one of the top-5 program in all college football history having won 11 National Championships. UCLA split a National Championship in Football back in 1954, which is a year before Disneyland opened. The last time that UCLA won a Rose Bowl game was at the end of the 1985 season. I was in high school then and I am told that I am now old. If you want to re-watch that game, you had better have an old VHS system.The Cross-town Rivalry comes alive the week before their annual Football game. Beyond the Trojan and Bruin alumnus and their families who have very obvious team allegiances, it seems that everyone else in the city is asked to take a side and choose a team to support for at least that one week, for that one game.UCLA boasts about being the first to win their 100th NCAA national championship, but when that happened 22 of those were in sports that USC does not field a team (mostly women’s sports) and when you consider the fact that the NCAA does not award Football national championships and USC claims 11 of those that apparently do not count, you can see how this math seems very lopsided.OLYMPIC ATHLETESPrior to the outcome of the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, USC and UCLA are the two most dominant supplier of Olympic Athletes to the Summer Games. USC has brought the number one collegiate total of 288 Olympic medals ranking them 16th in history (that is more than the country of Canada) and they have won at least one medal in every Olympics since 1904 and a gold medal in every Olympics since 1912.UCLA has a very impressive 245 medals, ranking them #20th in Olympic history and second in Collegetic rankings, Stanford is right behind with 239 medals and Cal Berkeley with 176. This proves that the Pac-12 conference truly is the “Conference of Champions” with the Top-4 Olympic Medal winning colleges in the US, all being from the Pac-12. For you to truly understand this… if the Pac-12 conference were it’s own country we would rank second, behind only the United States of America. That is very impressive for our Pac-12 conference!RIO UPDATE: USC athletes won 21 Olympic medals in 2016 and UCLA won 9.FAMOUS ALUMNIAll of the other universities in the world would love to have the long list of notables and famous names that are attributed to either USC or UCLA. Based mainly on the fact that both universities are located next to Hollywood, each one has attracted more than their fair share of celebrities, either before or after they became famous.USC can claim film legend John Wayne, the first man to walk on the moon Astronaut Neil Armstrong and the creator of Star Wars George Lucas, to name a few. Other famous on screen USC Alumnus include Ron Howard, Forest Whitaker and Will Ferrell. As an example, Tom Selleck is only 4 units short from getting his business school degree but he cannot be counted as a USC graduate because he is not.UCLA’s most famous attendees are Jackie Robinson who broke the Major League Baseball color barrier (but did not actually graduate), Jim Morrison of the “Doors” as well as George Takei from Star Trek. ‪ With the help of a UCLA Alumnus I have learned that the following child TV Stars actually did graduate from UCLA such as Winnie Cooper, Mayijm Bialik‬, and “Steve Urkel” played by Jaleel White.UNIVERSITY STEREOTYPESBoth universities have been a victim of how the media portrays them. In the San Fernardo Valley where I grew up, I was bought up to believe that only rich, white people went to USC, and thus I only met half of that equation sadly. UCLA fans when playing USC, love to flash their credit cards and shake their car keys at USC students during games. The most common joke is that USC stands for the “University of Spoiled Children.” USC people counter with t-shirts that say “My maid went to UCLA” or “I would have gone to UCLA but father had a fulltime job so I had a choice.”It is simply not true that UCLA is full of low-income, academically inferior students that could not get into UC Berkeley. That is NOT true! The reality is that you can find just as many BMWs and Mercedes cars on UCLA’s campus as you can on the USC Campus. Statically the average household incomes of UCLA students are only $4,000 less that USC student households. It is funny to me that UCLA students attending college in Westwood, one of the most expensive areas of Los Angeles, make fun of USC students living in one of the poorest area of Los Angeles for being spoiled. Really?Most UCLA students chose that college because they felt that the ratio between quality of education and to cost to attend was very high ratio. Most people never factor in the fact that 70% of USC students do not pay the full cost of their high tuition cost, but rather get some level of financial aid package that makes it affordable for them to attend USC.I am a very proud example of the USC student who did not have to pay the full tuition cost to attend USC but rather received a very generous financial aid package. I can proudly state that USC was cheaper for me to attend than if I would have attended UCLA, a pubic school, where financial aid packages are not awarded as generous.When looking at the price of tuition at public universities and private universities it's not an apples to apples comparison. If you live in California then the cost of public school education is very cost effective due to it being subsidized by state tax payers, however out of state students have to pay a substantially higher rate, almost comparable to the cost of tuition at USC. On average 63% of the USC student body is made up of out of state students, 13% of which are international students, which is typically the highest percentage of all universities in the country. The vast majority of these students receive financial aid from USC and do not pay full tuition, were they to attend UCLA they would not qualify for California's in state tuition pricing and with less financial aid available their price of tuition could very well be as much as they would pay at USC.SCHOOL PRIDENeither USC nor UCLA lack anything when it comes to college pride. Both truly think that they are better than the other which is okay, we both have tons to be proud of. However, those proud UCLA students from decades now have children and a number of them are now sending their children to USC (God forbid) because they know that USC gives them a better competitive advantage in the Real World.Spend any time in Los Angeles, and you will see USC and UCLA banners, license plate frames and even tattoos. What our alumni groups forget, is that a lot of our non-alumni fans are some of the most passionate fans that I know. They never attended USC but they always talk about any relatives that did. They can name every Heisman trophy winner, in what years the football team won the national championship or the outcome of every USC/UCLA game. I love that! They typically are “truly” the ones with blood in their eyes….MAJOR DIFFERENCESOne of the biggest differences between these great institutions is that UCLA as a public school has much more state bureaucracy that USC as a private school does not have to deal with. If USC wants to make a major change in anything, it does not have to go to Sacramento and ask the eight other campuses for permission.There is a lot of honest talk about how you are a Bruin for 4, 5, 6 years whatever it takes to get your required classes to graduate over there in Westwood, but you are always a Trojan for Life! USC people never complain like bruins do about access to required classes. That is the lack of promise from attending a public school. Is it really cheaper to attend UCLA for 6 years to get all of your required classes than to attend USC for only 4 years?One of my favorite USC vs. UCLA stories is when a UCLA alumnus Biomedical entrepreneur Alfred E. Mann wanted to donate $100 Million to his alma mater for the creation of a science research institute but he reported to the LA Times that he was having difficulty with UCLA in accepting this huge financial gift. Former USC President Dr. Steven Sample read this in the paper and they got a hold of Mr. Mann and convinced him that giving that gift to USC would be a better decision. "He pointed out that they"--officials at USC--"are more entrepreneurial than a public institution that is overwhelmed with bureaucracy and politics," Mann said. "He's a very clever guy."http://articles.latimes.com/1998/feb/05/news/mn-15695HOUSES DIVIDEDMy fellow USC Alumnus friends have asked me to make sure that I mentioned that some families have divided loyalties among this rivalry. Thought I cannot explain it myself, I am aware of enough families that I know personally that actually have this flag proudly displayed in front of their house. These people are much stronger than myself.FIGHTING IN LOS ANGELES?As much as New York City loves to pat itself on the back, the city of Los Angeles is the true center of the universe along the Pacific Rim. Los Angeles is where it's at and both USC and UCLA are located in the right place, at the right time! It is both good and bad that we share a world-class city but in the end, it makes each university stronger due to the constant competition in multiple areas of life.USC and UCLA fight like brothers…and we all know who is the older and more powerful brother is in that fight!OCTOBER 2016 UPDATE:The initial Wall Street Journal / Higher Times Education ranked over a 1,000 US Universities and they claimed that USC is the #15 best university in America. UCLA did make it to 25th place.