Professional Fees to work for employer

[oliveralice]

I am a mental health therapist and have to pay for professional supervision weekly that I do not get reimbursed for by my employer. I am working toward obtaining my licensure but until I work enough hours to test I have to pay for weekly professional supervision. I have to pay this or I would lose my job. Where can I deduct this on my taxes?

[Critter]

Sorry, Deductions for job expenses have been suspended with the new tax act.  See Deductions that have been suspended for 2018-2025

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/4482873-which-federal-tax-deductions-have-been-suspended-by-tax-re...

[Hal_Al]

If you are a regular W-2 employee, none of your job expenses (including that) are deductible.  If you are a contract employee (pay reported on a 1099-Misc, instead of a W-2) then it would be deductible.

How do you pay it?  Check with your employer. If it's taken out of your pay on a pre-tax basis, it is not being taxed and does not need to be deducted. 

[oliveralice]

I pay for it out of my own pocket, it is not pretax. 

[BillM223]

As was noted above in both responses, if you are an employee (as you said you were in your original question), then nearly all unreimbursed employee business expenses were eliminated on your federal return by the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017.

Note: some state still allow these deductions, so you MAY be able to get some value out of them.

To find where to enter these, do a Search (upper right) for unreimbursed employee business expenses and click on the jump-to link.