Hello. I’ll be deducting my immigration lawyer fees but my question can I deduct fees that I didn’t pay yet? My lawyer just sent me the invoice for dec 2017?

[DS30 · Accepted solution]

It depends but you would only be able to deduct any allowable legal fees in the year you made the actual payments.

According to the IRS,   you are not allowed to deduct these legal expenses .

The basic rule is that you can deduct attorney's fees you pay to:

• produce or collect taxable income, or
• help determine, collect, or obtain a refund of any tax.

Simply put, you can take a deduction if you need an attorney's help to make money you’ll have to pay tax on; or if an attorney helps you with a tax matter, like representing you in an IRS audit.

So the legal fees incurred related to your immigration filings will be considered nondeductible personal expenses.

[Bsch4477]

In any event, you can only deduct an expense in the year you actually paid it.