Employee Expenses - Disabled Employee Impairment-Related Work Expense
1

You can deduct impairment-related work expenses of persons with disabilities as miscellaneous itemized deductions. They are not subject to the 2% limit.

Per IRS Publication 529 Miscellaneous Deductions:

On page 3:

Employee with impairment-related work expenses. Impairment-related work expenses are the allowable expenses of an individual with physical or mental disabilities for attendant care at his or her place of employment. They also include other expenses in connection with the place of employment that enable the employee to work. See Pub. 463 for more details.

On page 12:

Employees with impairment-related work expenses. Most of the categories of employees who are able to claim deductions for unreimbursed employees report these deductions as an adjustment to income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), discussed next. However, employees with impairment-related work expenses on Form 2106 report these expenses on Schedule A (Form 1040).

Enter impairment-related work expenses on Form 2106. Enter on your Schedule A (Form 1040); or your Schedule A (Form 1040-NR), that part of the amount on Form 2106, that is related to your impairment. Those employment-related expenses not related to your impairment are a miscellaneous itemized deduction and are no longer deductible.

If you are self-employed, enter your impairment-related work expenses on the appropriate Form (Schedule C, E, or F) used to report your business income and expenses.

Per IRS Publication 463 Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses, on page 35:

You can deduct impairment-related expenses as business expenses if they are:

  • Necessary for you to do your work satisfactorily;
  • For goods and services not required or used, other than incidentally, in your personal activities; and
  • Not specifically covered under other income tax laws.

To enter the impairment-related work expenses on Form 2106 Employee Business Expenses, which will transfer to Schedule A Itemized Deductions, Line 16:

  1. From within your TaxAct return (Online or Desktop), click Federal. On smaller devices, click in the upper left-hand corner, then click Federal.
  2. Click Itemized or Standard Deductions in the Federal Quick Q&A Topics menu to expand, then click Impairment-related work expenses of persons with disabilities.
  3. Click + Add Form 2106 to create a new copy of the form or click Edit to review a form already created.
  4. Continue with the interview process to enter all of the appropriate information.
  5. On the screen titled Employee Expenses - Occupation Related, select Impaired-related work expenses as an employee with a disability, then click Continue.
  6. On the screen titled Employee Expenses - Other Expenses, enter the impaired-related work expenses as Other business expenses, then click Continue.

Note that any link in the information above is updated each year automatically and will take you to the most recent version of the document at the time it is accessed.