Expenses for Jury Duty?

[Koss]

Haven't heard this one before...

Jury duty income gets reported on line 21.

What about related expenses, such as meals, parking and mileage?

Form 2106? But a juror is not an employee.

Any thoughts?

BMK

[New York Enrolled Agent]

Haven't heard this one before...

Jury duty income gets reported on line 21.

What about related expenses, such as meals, parking and mileage?

Under what theory would meals be possibly be deductible? You don't eat unless you're on jury duty?

The Service holds the position that transportation expenses incurred for jury duty are personal expenses - see PMTA 00953.

[Gene V]

When I was on jury duty, they paid for my mileage, I don't remember if it was added to my jury pay or not.

Remember, if you receive your regular pay while on jury duty and turn over your jury duty fees to your employer, you can offset the income by taking a deducting on line 36, write "Jury Pay" on the dotted line next to line 36.

[taxxcpa]

Every time I've been on jury duty, they required you to wait so long to get paid that I left empty-handed.
Once, the District Clerk asked if I would donate my jury pay to something for the good of the county, so I agreed to do that.
In Dallas, they used to give a free bus ticket when you had jury duty. If you drove you ended up paying a lot to park near the courthouse.

But there was no such thing as a free lunch for jurors, and no such thing as a tax deduction for your lunch. You could always brown-bag it if you didn't want to pay for lunch.

[mastertaxguy]

Jury Duty Expenses

Facts do not indicate that mileage reimbursement was provided. Jury Duty may be for a day, or a longer period of time. For some States and Federal District Courts, jury duty may involve travel outside the taxpayer's home or metropolitan area. Thus, I would not hesitate to claim unreimbursed transportation expenses, including parking fees if need be, as a misc. deduction on Schedule A. Where, of course, it may do little good. It is not a volunteer activity. Others may disagree, but I do not work for IRS.

[Roberts]

My court house demanded jurors not wear shorts.
Is it okay to list the pants I bought as a uniform?

[ChEAr$]

Under what theory would meals be possibly be deductible? You don't eat unless you're on jury duty?

The Service holds the position that transportation expenses incurred for jury duty are personal expenses - see PMTA 00953.

In some areas of the country, the county seat is a far piece from home, so it makes sense to spend the night rather than drive back home. In that case, both hotel and meals should be allowed. And of course transportation expenses whether reimbursed or not. Most courts around here only pay a nickle mile.
However, all these expenses aren't netted with jury pay, but schedule a deductions as best I remember from afore.

[Kram BergGold]

Jury Duty Reiombursement

I recently had Federal jury duty. I looked it up and the reibursement I received is not reportable. You just report the fee on line 21.

[FEDUKE404]

Some logic at play

I recently had Federal jury duty. I looked it up and the reibursement I received is not reportable. You just report the fee on line 21.

The rules/payments for the Feds (grand and petit jury) are different mainly because state trials are "local" - usually by the county - whereas a single federal court district may encompass a significant geographical area of the state.

It's a rather poor analogy, but for us tax folks almost like commuting versus non-commuting expenses.

FE

[New York Enrolled Agent]

In some areas of the country, the county seat is a far piece from home, so it makes sense to spend the night rather than drive back home. In that case, both hotel and meals should be allowed. And of course transportation expenses whether reimbursed or not. Most courts around here only pay a nickle mile.
However, all these expenses aren't netted with jury pay, but schedule a deductions as best I remember from afore.

I'm interested under which section of the tax code "...it makes sense to spend the night rather than drive back home." these expenses would be deductible. It seems like a personal decision and thus a personal expense.

In SCA 200028035, the Service determined jurors were not employees or self-employed in the performance of their duties. Thus it appears §162 would not apply.

BTW, I believe Koss in the OP was only asking about "routine" jury duty.

[ATSMAN]

Moot most of the time!

Couple of years back I had a client who was on Jury duty for 5 days and wanted to write off mileage and parking. Meals were provided by the court while she was serving. She got a W2 for a few hundred dollars for her service. Told her it was not deductible and even if it were deductible it would not meet the 2% threshold to be actually deductible. So it was a moot point. If recall parking was $12 per day and mileage was around 20miles/day.