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01/11/2019

Be Aware Of These Changes In Tax Laws

Employee-deduction losses will impact more than 5 million people

The Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TCJA) made significant changes that will affect millions of employees. Most of these changes went into effect on Jan. 1, 2018 and will expire after 2025. Still, many employees and their employers may not yet be aware of some of the changes that will impact them.

Employee deduction loss
One of these changes is that employees who itemize deductions no longer may claim a deduction for unreimbursed business expenses that exceed 2 percent of their adjusted gross income. Un-reimbursed employee business expenses fall into two categories: job-specific expenses and travel-related expenses:

More than 5 million employees affected
Looking at the list of “un-reimbursed business expenses,” losing the ability to deduct business miles driven in an employee-owned vehicle may not seem like a significant change. However, many employees will be impacted. In 2016, more than 5 million employees claimed mileage as an un-reimbursed business expense. This amounted to $35 billion in deductions, or an average of $6,965 per employee. In other words, this deduction was a meaningful way for employees to get closer to fair and accurate reimbursement for business use of their vehicles in situations where their employer vehicle programs fell short.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TLNT.

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