Personal Tax Tips: Job Hunt Expenses
If you e-file a Form 4868, Personal Tax Extension, you can automatically extend your tax deadline by six months. With six months of extra time, you can do whatever you want to make sure that your taxes are in order for your new deadline. You may decide to take your tax forms to a paid preparer, or you may need the time to wait for the appropriate tax forms to arrive. How about using that extra time to find even more deductions that you could qualify for?
New Job/Same Position
To qualify for any job search deductions, you have to be looking for a job within the same line of work as your last job. If you’re searching for an entirely new occupation, you can’t deduct any job hunt expenses.
Résumés
Keep those receipts because it’s possible for you to deduct the costs of preparing and sending your résumé to employers.
On-The-Road Expenses
If your job search has you racking up the miles, you can deduct the cost of the road trip. The only catch is that the main reason for your trip was to look for a job.
Job Agency
If you’re paying fees to a job placement agency to help you look for a job, you can deduct those expenses as well.
Schedule A
Normally, you deduct your job search expenses with your Schedule A, Itemized Deductions. Your deductions will be classified as “Miscellaneous Deductions,” and you can deduct the ones that are more than two percent of your adjusted gross income (AGI).
Premium Tax Credit/Health Marketplace
Be sure to report any changes, due to your new employment, to your Health Insurance. If you’re getting advance payments from the Premium Tax Credit, a change of income or eligibility of coverage could assist you in receiving the right type and amount of monetary help.
While deducting costs from job hunting can be helpful, there are some circumstances in which you can’t deduct any search expenses.
Initial Job
If you’re looking for employment for the very first time, you won’t be able to deduct anything.
Sizable Job Break
Don’t expect much in deductions, if none at all, if there was a significant amount of time between you leaving your last job, and you finding your next job. You simply can’t deduct expenses with such a long break.
Reimbursed Costs
Any expenses that have been reimbursed are not deductible.
Give yourself more time to discover what else you could deduct by e-filing a personal tax extension with ExpressExtension. Within minutes, you can get an automatic 6-month extension to file your tax return. You can also e-file on-the-go with our FREE Express 4868 App download for iOS and Android devices.
For any questions or further assistance with e-filing, contact our live, expert professionals by phone at (803) 514-5155 (Monday – Friday, 9am – 6pm EST), email at [email protected], or live chat at www.expressextension.com.
