Comments on: Job Hunting Costs Are Tax Deductible

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:55:49 +0000

Thank you very much for the clarification, I added a sentence to the text to hopefully make that a little clearer. Thanks!

By: kosmo

kosmo — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:34:57 +0000

“You can deduct certain expenses as a miscellaneous itemized deduction on your Schedule A if it is more than 2% of your adjusted gross income.”

To clarify this a bit – you can deduct only the portion of expenses that exceed 2% of AGI. That is, if your expenses are $2001 and your AGI is $100K, you can only deduct $1, not the full $2001.

Here is the form 529 verbiage that clarifies this

“You figure your deduction on Schedule A by subtracting 2% of your adjusted gross income from the total amount of these expenses.”

Good tip, especially with the high unemployment rate right now.

By: Chiko

Chiko — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:09:57 +0000

I noticed this when I was doing my own taxes (using Turbotax). I should have kept those receipts.

By: Stephanie PTY

Stephanie PTY — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:50:33 +0000

They aren’t real specific about what “first job” means. I read somewhere (on one of the about.com sites) that it doesn’t count as your first job if you’ve had an internship or summer job in that field… anyone know if that’s true? Because if so, I could claim my current job search on next year’s taxes.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 23:55:40 +0000

Great article, I am glad I don’t need to worry about it right now but this is the kind of thing they should talk about nationally. I never knew that people could deduct that.