Deduct Some Of Your Office Work Expenses

If you’ve incurred expenses in the course of your work for your company, you can deduct some of them from your tax return.

Here are some qualified employee business expenses that you can factor into your tax return:

* Travel costs or use of car for business (with consideration if away from home)
* Entertainment and food expenses
* Home expenses or use of your home for business purposes
* Work-related education expenses
* Supplies and tools used for work
* Miscellaneous qualified expenses

Be sure to keep records of all your expenses that you will use for deductions. If in doubt, do check with the IRS.gov website, or call 800-829-3676.

Employer’s plans

However, if your employer has a reimbursement system, then you cannot include the payments in your gross income. That also means that you cannot deduct any of the reimbursed amounts.

An employer’s plan must meet the three requirements:

1) You must have paid or had expenses that are deductible while doing your job as an employee.

2) You must keep accountable records for your employer, and submit them at the required time.

3) Any excess reimbursements must be returned before a stated deadline or within a reasonable time.

If your reimbursements are non-accountable, then the payments should be included in your W-2. You should itemize your expense deductions. Use IRS Form 2106 or 2106-EZ, and then attach it to your Form 1040.

Only employee business expenses over 2% of your adjusted gross income can be used for deductions.

LINKS

* Publication 552: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p552.pdf
* Publication 529: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p529.pdf