turbotax question - what qualifies as "job expenses"?

this is a misc deduction on Sch A and is limited to the excess of 2% of your AGI, I seriously doubt there would be anything you incur that would qualify but here goes, if your employer REQUIRES you to have specific safety gear, a membership for that industry, could be you pay a parking fee that is required--the crux is REQUIREMENT

Yes, non reimbursed expenses.

Anything reimbursed does not count, can't be deducted.

They are referring to

1) Expenses that you pay that were not reimbursed

2) Expenses for which the reimbursement was included in the income shown on your W-2 (which is very are, but does happen, and usually when an employer reimburses something that wouldn't be deductible anyway) and that would be deductible if they weren't reimbursed

They are not referring to:

1) Expenses that are reimbursed if the reimbursement is not included in the income shown on your W-2

2) Expenses that you don't pay because the employer pays for them directly

3) Commuting (getting from home to work or from work to home)

4) Clothing that you CAN wear when you aren't working (even if you decide that you don't want to wear it) ["Clothing" does not include safety equipment, such as hardhats, which can be included even if they can be worn when not working.]

when youre itemizing you can pretty much claim anything .. the further you go with it the higher the risk of you getting audited though, thats the way i look at it .. long story short i know someone personally that played around with all kinds of claims and deductions and wound up getting audited .. yeah he wound up getting nailed with about a 30,000$ ticket and they dont play .. you WILL pay or they'll take everything you have including the kitchen sink ..

If you were reimbursed it is no longer an expense.

If it was reimbursed, you can not deduct it.