Unreimbursed Employee Expenses

[Hogue1993]

I am trying to figure this out now. My husband is a CDL A driver and gets a W2 also has a 1099 from another job. Other expenses have us over the threshold to be able to itemize without putting in his over the road expenses. I can't see how to do this in the program with the prompts given.  Based on what I am reading in pub 463, since we are over the 2% AGI threshold, we should qualify for the deduction?

[Vanessa A]

Employee business expenses are not deductible at all.  He can deduct expenses related to his 1099 income, but not his W2 income. 

"This type of deduction is considered a miscellaneous deduction that is no longer allowable due to the suspension of miscellaneous itemized deductions subject to the 2% floor under section 67(a)." Pub 463

[rnowak]

The rules you are referring to are correct- but they apply to self-employed truck drivers so the deduction are taken on a Schedule C.  You cannot take the Job Related Expenses as an Itemized Deduction as a W-2 employee.  @egpowers 

Apparently truck drivers are not suppose eat! This part of the law is ethically  wrong! There is no difference in hours on road if your self employed or work for a company! It's just owner operators get to eat!

[KG49]

Part of the problem is that TT has Q&A topics that refer to DOT hours of service in the Federal Employment Expenses > Job-Related Expenses topic. As of tax year 2018 the DOT 80% option was removed from Federal form 2106.

If you answer the Q&A by checking yes on the DOT/Transportation Industry questions and only filling in amounts pertaining to DOT meal reimbursements, then the program will present you with multiple errors during the review.

You have to fill in the Federal 2106 in order to get more deductions for your state itemized return. TT should fix this six-year-old problem. TT did not include any questions that would lead me to the Federal 2106 during the NY state Q&A. In fact, TT did not indicate that my NY state taxes would be itemized, I only found out upon review of the finished forms. But TT is very good about trying to sell me upgrades, live tax advice and audit defense, no thanks.

My solution was to duplicate entries for Meal Expenses DOT & Other meals and entertainment, as well as duplicating entries for Reimbursements DOT & Reimbursements Other meals and entertainment. The software indicated that it was applying an 80% factor to my meals expense for the state return.