Deduct mileage not reimbursed by employer

[rbrown871]

I am a Field Service Engineer and travel about 33k miles a year for business at which my employer reimburse .13 cents/mile and the government allowance is .545cents/mile.  I am also required to purchase monogrammed clothing for work use ($400) just in shirts, not including the other business essentials that are needed to perform my job that are not reimbursed.  I am using TurboTax Deluxe 2018 (as I have used in the past years) and would like to know how to report these non-reimbursed expenses? I have reviewed Pub. 463 but not getting anywhere with that.

R. Brown

Ohio

[rbrown871]

This also holds true for any Sales Reps (insurance, Real Estate Agents, Doctors, utility workers (meter readers), News Paper delivery) , Fire and EMS responders among many other careers where uniforms and mileage expenses are not reimbursed.  Seems like they want to shut the USA down of those jobs. 

[BarbL]

Unfortunately, these deductions have been eliminated on the federal side. TurboTax continues to ask about these unreimbursed employee expenses because many states continue to allow a deduction.

This includes unreimbursed employee expenses such as uniforms, union dues and the deduction for business-related meals, entertainment and travel, as well as any deductions you may have previously been able to claim for tax preparation fees and investment expenses, including investment management fees, safe deposit box fees and investment expenses from pass-through entities.

The business standard mileage rate cannot be used to claim an itemized deduction for unreimbursed employee travel expenses during the suspension.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/4482394-how-will-tax-reform-affect-my-2018-federal-tax-return

[rbrown871]

Well it looks like Congress really wants to shut down the service industry and Screw everyone in the process.  May just have to relocate to Canada

[rbrown871]

Although if I had 6 children and only work part time I would get thousands of dollars back and assistance from the government who would provide me with fuel cards, would pay my utilities and food expenses.  But being that I have a full time job I get screwed.....

[ZTaxPro]

This sounds more like an expense of your business that they refuse to pay you for. You should get the person receiving income for your mileage to pay for this and not the government. You are asking the same thing as the person with 6 children. For the government (Taxpayers) to subsidize your personal choice. You can move to a different job that does not require your to spend personal money on the job, just like they can control how many kids they have. Your job has received this subsidies in effect since they have not paid you for the mileage.