topic Social Security disability legal fee in Retirement tax questions

Social Security disability legal fee

Mike K 195 — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 03:08:34 GMT

No , I cannot be sure of the correct answer. The posted answers I received are conflicting from several of the responses I received.

Mike K 195

Re: Social Security disability legal fee

Opus 17 — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 14:28:56 GMT

Legal fees you pay to get a disability determination from the social security administration are not tax deductible for 2018-2025 on your federal return. They may be deductible on your state return but there are several limitations.

1. You list them as personal legal expenses in the federal miscellaneous deductions section. Even though they are not included on your federal return, they flow to the state return from there.

2. However, the legal fees are only deductible to the extent your disability is taxable. (You can't deduct fees from the income if you don't pay tax on the income.) For example, in NY state, all SS benefits are tax-free, so the legal fees would not be deductible. If you live in a state where (for example) 50% of your SS benefit is taxable, then 50% of the legal fees are deductible.

3. Then in most states that still allow this, this is an itemized deduction subject to the 2% rule, so you will only get an actual tax benefit if you already itemize your deduction and your legal fees are substantially more than 2% of your taxable income.

Re: Social Security disability legal fee

Opus 17 — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 14:36:44 GMT

Be aware that any answer from 2019 or earlier is guaranteed to be wrong on this since there was a major tax law change starting in 2018, and any post on this board with a 2019 date is actually much older, with the date being changed when the post was migrated to the new web site.