Hi friends I'm Laura Adams and you're listening to the Money Girl

Podcast. I'm back with the second in a special three-part series about tax deduction dangers.

I want to thank iTunes for featuring this series and welcome listeners who are new money girl subscribers.

In the first installment of this three-part series I gave you common mistakes to avoid

when claiming the mortgage interest deduction. In this episode I'll tell you about

another tax break that could put money in your pocket, job related expenses.

Remember those uniforms you had to buy or the professional dues you had to pay to keep the boss happy?

Well if you weren't reimbursed for those expenses, they could help you pay less tax.

The reason you should pay attention to tax deductible

expenses is because they reduce your taxable income. The less taxable

income you have, the less you'll owe Uncle Sam. Some tax deductions are subject to certain

conditions and that's the case with job-related expenses which the IRS calls

employee business expenses. You have to jump over the following two hurdles to claim them.

Number one, you must file taxes on Form 1040 and itemized deductions on Schedule A. And two, you can only claim the total amount that exceeds 2% of

your adjusted gross income or AGI. For example, if you have AGI of 40,000, 2% is $800. That means only the amount of employee expenses

above 800 are tax deductible.

If your job related expenses total 1,000,

you could only deduct 200, not 1,000.

And if your total expenses are $800 or less you're out of luck.

Additionally there are some employee expenses that have further restrictions and I'll

cover those in just a moment.

The types of expenses you can deduct for your work must be considered ordinary and necessary to perform your job or trade.

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