Phone tax write off question?

Any employee can write off unreimbursed expenses related to their job. Unreimbursed cellphone use would be included in that. The problem is that you'd probably have to have more than about $6000 worth of expenses (twice that, if you're married) in order for it to *maybe* be worth claiming on your return.

The IRS allows you to claim either a Standard Deduction ($5800 - single or $11600 - married), or Itemized Deductions - whichever is larger. Unreimbursed Employee Expenses are tallied on Schedule A - Itemized Deductions, along with State Tax payments, Charitable Contributions, Unreimbursed Medical Expenses, and a few other expenses. To complicate matters, Unreimbursed Employee Expenses don't even begin to count on this schedule unless they're more than 2% of your income. So, for instance, if your salary is $50,000, the IRS disregards your first $1,000 of unreimbursed expenses.

So, to answer your question: Yes, you can try to claim it. But it's unlikely to reduce your taxes much, if at all.

EDIT: There seems to be some outdated information around here. Beginning in 2010, you can deduct job-related expenses related to using a cell phone, and it is not subject to the stringent requirements applied to other "Listed Property" items. The IRS finally realized that 1) it's not worth their auditors time to be going through cellphone bills line by line trying to verify the business use percentage, and 2) cellphones are necessary to operate businesses in the 21st century. Cellphones were never considered "the first landline into your home", and are not automatically excluded from consideration if that's the only phone in use. http://www.irs.gov/publications/p529/ar02.html

The IRS has bigger fish to fry than forcing employees to properly log and document their calls to claim a deduction. Take a reasonable percentage, see if it qualifies you to itemize (probably won't), and take comfort in the fact that no reasonable auditor is going to force you to pull up a log of phone calls to substantiate that percentage unless you completely piss them off somehow.

The problem is that cell phones are mixed use. Since most people get bundled plans now, there is no additional cost for the business calls; this is the situation for you, you can't deduct anything. According to the poster, he spends 8000 minutes a month on the phone (that's more than 4 hours a day!) of which 3000 are business related (that's more than 2 hours a day and frankly doesn't seem likely). If true, he'd be writing off 38% of his bill.

You'd have to show that you incurred excess expenses and that the firm won't reimburse you. Then if anything is left, you add it to form 2106, less 2% of your AGI and then you itemize it.

Edit, the revised rules, IRS Notice 2011-72 is for employer provided cell phones. This isn't. The simultaneous memo about employer reimbursements not being taxable also doesn't apply. The pub 529 gives virtually no guidance.

On a personal phone, you can only claim itemized calls as a business expense.

As an employee, you claim Un-Reimbursed Employee Expenses on Scedule A - Itemized Deductions. If you don't already use Schedule A, stop now.

Un-Reimbursed Employee Expenses have a 2% threshold; this means you can claim the amount in excess of 2% of your AGI or Adjusted Gross Income (last number on page 1 of the 1040). So, if your AGI is $50,000, your threshold is $1000. All your unreimbursed employee expenses over $1000 is deductible.

So, basically, you can't claim the deduction unles you had a second phone and the annual cost exceeded $1000.

Since you use the same phone for personal as for work, no. If any of those business calls are billed separately for long distance, you might be able to deduct those, but typical plans don't charge for long distance. I assume though that your plan has a certain number of minutes included - if you're paying for extra minutes every month, then look into a new plan with more minutes.

Even if there was some part of your bill that was deductible, you could only deduct it if you itemize, and even then only the amount that's over 2% of your AGI.

And really before you did get this new job you already did have this same cell phone for you own personal use RIGHT and when you are no longer working at this job you will still have and would plan on keeping this same cell phone for your personal use RIGHT.

And could you really be able to take your phone bill and actually be able to prove the calls that you did make that were really made to the company business phones for actuall business purpose with written records of the reason for each of the 2K to 3K ORDINARY and NECESSARY BUSINESS related calls IF and WHEN the IRS would decide that they would want you to verify the amount that you used on your schedule A itemized deductions of your 1040 income tax return for this purpose and time in your life.

Simultaneously with the Notice, the IRS announced in a memo to its examiners a similar administrative approach that applies with respect to arrangements common to small businesses that provide cash allowances and reimbursements for work-related use of personally-owned cell phones. Under this approach, employers that require employees, primarily for noncompensatory business reasons, to use their personal cell phones for business purposes may treat reimbursements of the employees' expenses for reasonable cell phone coverage as nontaxable. This treatment does not apply to reimbursements of unusual or excessive expenses or to reimbursements made as a substitute for a portion of the employee's regular wages.

Details are in the memo and in Notice 2011-72, posted on IRS.gov.

http://www.irs.gov/uac/IRS-Issues-Guidance-on-Tax-...

Under penalties of perjury, I declare that I have examined this return, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, it is true, correct, and accurately lists all amounts and sources of income I received during the tax year.

Your signature Date Your occupation

Spouse’s signature. Date Your occupation

If a joint return, both must sign.

Hope that you find the above enclosed information useful. 10/15/2012

You can deduct mandatory job-related expenses that your employer doesn't cover, such as phone bills, uniforms, etc. But in order to get any money back, those expenses would have to be larger than your standard deduction. For most people, they're not.

If you're self-employed (1099 or Schedule C), the standard deduction doesn't limit you.

get a second phone for business as a

personal phone used with business is

great way for audits.

assuming you mean a cell phone, you need to have one just for this employment(another for your personal use)

it is nearly impossible to define your business use and your personal use

Get a separate phone for your business use and you can write it off.