A Modest Proposal For The Next Relief Bill: Bring Back Miscellaneous Itemized Deductions

A Modest Proposal For The Next Relief Bill: Bring Back Miscellaneous Itemized Deductions

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As the pandemic surges on, Congress is increasingly pressing for a new stimulus bill.  Rumored topics include, among others, liability reform, health care, stimulus checks, and tax relief.  While everyone and their legislator is making a wish list for pet provisions, it seems an opportune time for a modest proposal:  Bring back miscellaneous itemized deductions“”they were unceremoniously suspended by the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017 ("TCJA“), but would provide much-needed relief in line with other recent tax amendments in the CARES Act.



Now if you find yourself asking what exactly a "miscellaneous itemized deduction“ is, and wondering why you should care, think of the paradigm example: an employee's unreimbursed business expenses.  The TCJA penalized many employees by making them non-deductible.  Why?  It was all about math“”and some quirky rules for pushing tax legislation through the sausage factory.  Miscellaneous itemized deductions were on the chopping block because their head netted a cool $1.2 trillion for federal coffers over the course of a decade, at least under budgetary scoring estimates.  But few legislators, if any, initially set out to roll them back.  It kind of just happened.  



The Proposal Would Benefit Employees



The theme behind the CARES Act and its Paycheck Protection Program has been to safeguard employees and