Form 2106 Airline and Rental Car for Military Reservist

[TXJohn]

Form 2106 is not giving the options to enter Airline and Rental Car and fuel costs for un-remibursed military travel. Where does this get entered?

[HelenC12]

If you are active duty with the Reserves, you should indicate your status during the Personal Info interview. 

Here's how to enter your Military Reservist  job-related expenses:

1. Open (continue) your return in TurboTax if it's not already open.
2. In TurboTax, search for 2106 and then select the Jump to link in the search results.
3. At the Tell us about the occupation you have expenses for screen, enter your occupation, then select Continue.
   • If you land on the Job-Related Expenses Summary screen, you can select Add Another Occupation (to add another 2106), Edit (for an existing 2106), or Delete.
4. Follow the onscreen instructions.

Related Information:

• Can employees deduct any job-related expenses?
• Can employees deduct commuting expenses like gas, mileage, fares, and tolls?
• Can I take the home office deduction?
• Can I deduct union dues?
• Where do I enter my business expenses in TurboTax CD/Download Home Business?

[TXJohn]

I did exactly what you said, searched for 2106 and selected the Jump To link.  Form 2106 doesn't offer entries for Airfare and Rental Car costs due to military reserve travel in excess of 100 miles.  Just heard they may not be deductible anymore so I'm now trying to find the IRS reference.

[JulieS]

I checked the IRS rules about deducting employee expenses on Form 2106 and I found that those expenses are still allowed for qualified military reservists. What is new is that the expenses are limited to the federal per diem rate. 

Looking a little further I found that Form 2106 is not final for 2019. That may why the fields in that section of Turbo Tax seem incomplete. Hopefully it will be updated soon. 

Here is a link to Publication 463 with more information about what you are allowed to deduct in 2019...

[shadow280]

This took me the longest time to figure out too...if you have the downloaded/CD version, click on the top (near search) for "Forms". This will take you to the actual forms being filed. Then go and ahead and find 2106. On box 3 is the section for rental car, and further down is further vehicle stuff. So you can put travel related values in there, and it updates right away. Then click step by step on top bar again, and voila! It's updated correctly. 

Turbotax hasn't fixed it in their "easy" version yet, so just do it the hard way.