I have legal fees that ARE deductible, however I cannot make the system recognize their deductibility. Help?

[rjs]

What are the legal fees for? What makes them deductible?

[rcmelvin]

They are related to retaining and protecting employment and income in my trade.

[rcmelvin]

I have already confirmed their deductibility.  I can't make TT take the deduction.

[Bsch4477]

Are you an employee?

[rjs]

On what form or schedule would the deduction appear?

IRS Publication 17 (page 193) says the following.

"Legal expenses that you incur in attempting to produce or collect taxable income, or that you pay in connection with the determination, collection, or refund of any tax are miscellaneous itemized deductions and are no longer deductible."

What makes your legal fees an exception to this rule?

[rcmelvin]

I have already confirmed deductibility.  I appreciate the response, but I need advice on the software, not on my taxes.  Thank you.

[rjs]

In order for us to tell you how to enter the legal fees in TurboTax, you need to be more specific about the nature of the legal fees, so that we can figure out where they should go on your tax return. Do you have any information about the form or schedule that the deduction should appear on? Obviously there is no place to enter legal fees in general because in general legal fees are not deductible. In order to tell you how to enter the deduction we have to know the specific deduction that you are trying to claim.

[rcmelvin]

Publication 529, Page 5, the TIP on bottom left.  2nd to last paragraph in column 1.  Thank you.

[Bsch4477 · Accepted solution]

If you are confident that your legal expenses are deductible and you are an employee so you can't deduct them on a Sch C, this is a work around:

Go to Income>Choose what to work on>Less Common Income>Misc income at bottom of the window>Other Reportable Income at bottom of widow>answer "Yes">Enter a description like "deductible legal expenses" and enter your expense as a negative number.  This will go to Sch 1 of the F. 1090 and deduct that amount from your AGI.