Can i deduct transportation to and from work? (i.e. if I take a bus, can i deduct the cost?)?

Question

Can i deduct transportation to and from work? (i.e. if I take a bus, can i deduct the cost?)?

Answer 1

I was told by my tax consultant that i cannot.

Answer 2

You might not be able to deduct it, but you should see if your local bus company has a pre-tax offer for employers.  There are too few of us who ride the bus at my office, but TheBus (what our bus system is called here) offers employers the ability to purchase bus passes for employees as a pre-tax expense.  Kind of like deductions from your paycheck that might are made for FICA or your 401K.  By having the amount taken out pre-tax, you lower your taxable income and therefore your taxes paid.

Answer 3

u can deduct it i believe, but u have to decide if it is worth it, in other words it would have to be over a certain amount to be deductable. u can deduct anything related to work expenses, ur clothes, shoes etc how ever if u do not have a receipt for those expenses u can not deduct them. if u get a bus pass every month u do get a receipt for that

Answer 4

Not in the US, in Germany you can.

Answer 5

Only if you're self employed and the cost of transportation is directly related to the cost of doing business (i.e., if you are going to see a business contact). This is an absolute travesty that Congress will hopefully correct as the price of gas rises.

Answer 6

I don't know about the bus but you can deduct transportation if you itemize. We do every year. Call a professional tax preparer and ask what information you need to start gathering.

Answer 7

To and from your primary job, no.  If you have to drive or take bus, etc. DURING your job (and your company does NOT re-imburst you), yes.

Also if you have a second job, you can deduct the cost from job 1 to job 2, but not the trip cost from you house and to you house.

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Do what I do, get your tax prepared, by a pro, then next year just copy the numbers.

Good Luck...

Answer 8

From home to work, no.  Tax law doesn't allow it.  If you have two jobs and go directly from one to the other, you can deduct that cost, but you have to itemize to do it.  

For your information, it doesn't pay to itemize unless you have high medical bills or a high mortgage.  If you rent and are reasonably healthy, the standard deduction will put more money back in your pocket.

Answer 9

You can't if you receive W-2s and fill out any of the 1040 forms and take the standard deduction on your tax returns.

You can if you choose to itemize deductions instead of taking the standard, but generally you need to take quite a lot of them, and transportation only works out to a small fraction of what the standard allows you.

You can also take deductions if you work freelance or on contracts, where you are responsible for paying your own taxes on the income you receive, and get your income statements on 1099 forms.

I have both a corporate job (for which I get W-2s) and work freelance (for which I get 1099s), and my tax advisor (and the turbo tax software) both told me that I was allowed to deduct any transportation costs that took me from one job to the other, but not costs of commuting from home to either job.

So basically you can only deduct transportation costs if you:

1) are responsible for paying your own taxes on the income you receive, without having it automatically deducted on your check, or

2) you have more than one job, at least one of which pays you untaxed income, and need to commute between them without going home.