Starting with 2018 and moving forward there is no tax deduction for union dues. The following statement came from OEA:
Tax deduction of Dues – The Tax Cuts and Job Act effective tax year 2018 suspended the previous deduction for job-related expenses or other miscellaneous itemized deductions that exceeded 2 percent of adjusted gross income. This suspension includes unreimbursed employee expenses such as union dues, so these expenses are no longer deductible. Therefore, the annual “Deductible/Non-Deductible portion of dues” publication will not be produced. For further information, members should consult their tax preparer or IRS publication 5307.
More clarification received from OEA Secretary/Treasurer:
- The job-related expense deduction in previous tax years allowed deductions for job-related expenses including union dues for any amount above 2% of adjusted gross income.
Congress eliminated the job-related expense deduction in Dec 2017 when they passed the so-call “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” which made significant changes in the individual income tax. Therefore, there is no way to deduct any amount of job-related expenses, including union dues.
The reason members are aware of this is tax software asked the member to include union dues when asking them to enumerate their expenses for deductions. The software would take the data and either apply the deduction or not depending on whether it met the threshold I outlined above. The member only knew that they entered the dues number and most likely the software didn’t tell them that it didn’t result in an additional deduction. Therefore, it’s likely that members are thinking they are losing a valuable tax deduction even if they were never able to take advantage of it.
TLDR version: The deduction went away completely and we are not able to use it for 2018 and going forward.