I am trying to do my taxes. My husband drives OTR for a company. I am trying to take a deduction for job related expenses (I am using Turbo Tax Free at the moment) but it keeps telling me we can not do that unless we itemize. Is this correct? I thought there was an exemption for the Transportation Industry. I am totally confused. Help!!

I believe if you want to deduct anything other than the standard deduction you need to itemize. If you are married filing jointly I think the standard deduction is $10,000, so you need more itemized deductions than that to make it worthwhile.

Have to itemize as far as I know.

Turbo tax will ask if you are in the transportation industry after you begin the itemized deductions section.

Thats right! Itemize!!

If you are a company driver you will fill out a 2106 or 2106EZ your meals alone should take you over the standard deduction. Then you can add your health insurance premiums,medical costs, real estate tax, personal property tax, charitable contributions (church) and other business related expenses such as cell phone, laptop, GPS, refrigerator, microwave, game system for down time, radio for weather and traffic reports, gloves, boots for driving, etc. Get the picture. If you are an owner operator you may not have enough to itemize on Sch A because you will take all of those deductions on your Schedule C and you will use the standard deduction.

Linda

PS the Turbo tax free edition will not get you where you need to be. Either get a tax person to do your return or get the paid for version Turbo Tax for Home and Business.

If you add items like frigs and micowaves, be ready to explain how long it took you to eat it. The IRS meal allowence is just what it states. If you file a schedule C and your gross revenue is 100,000+, your chances of audit double. Your DIF score will kick your return out for review if anything looks funny. In the case of frigs and microwaves, you may have to itemize your expences in order to deduct it. which isnt worth it. By all means save all you can, but be careful of deducting something that can red flag your return. Your chances of walking out of an audit winning it are 1 out of 32. Not good odds at all. Most of the time we go in there to do our best to reduce all the damage we can possible. Theres no winning with Frigs and Microwaves. Its your choice.