Claiming the Deduction
The IRS allows you to claim the educator expenses deduction if you’re a teacher and you’ve paid for classroom supplies or other materials out of your own pocket during the tax year. You don’t have to go through all the fuss and trouble of itemizing to claim it because it’s an adjustment to income. It also reduces your adjusted gross income (AGI), which is important because you can become ineligible for certain tax benefits if your AGI is too high.
Qualifying for the Deduction
You must be a teacher, aide, instructor, counselor, or principal to qualify for the educator expense deduction, and you must have worked at least 900 hours during the school year in a school that’s certified by your state. The school can be a public, private, or religious institution. Only grade school and high school educators qualify. People with homeschool, preschool, or college educator costs don’t qualify for this deduction.
What Expenses Can Be Deducted?
Most things you spend money on as an educator qualify for the deduction, provided that you bought them for use in your classroom and your school or teacher’s union hasn’t reimbursed you for them. The supplies must be “ordinary and necessary.” They’re items that are commonly accepted and used in a classroom, and your students benefited from them. Some common deductible expenses include:
BooksSuppliesComputer equipment, software, and servicesSupplementary materials used in the classroomHealth or physical education courses related to athletics
The Tax Relief Act of 2020 additionally allows you to deduct expenses for supplies necessary to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in classrooms, including:
Face masksDisposable glovesDisinfectantsHand soap and sanitizersAir purifiersTape, chalk, or paint to mark off areas of social distancingPhysical barriers, such as plexiglass
Other items can be eligible as well if they’re recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These expenses must have been incurred after March 12, 2020.
Deduction Limits
According to a survey from AdoptAClassroom.org, during the 2020-2021 school year, teachers spent $750 of their own money on classroom supplies. The amount you can claim as an educator expense is capped at $300 for the 2022 tax year, however. You can each claim up to $300 in expenses for a total of $600 on a joint tax return if both you and your spouse are educators.
Other Restrictions and Limitations
Your deduction can be reduced by certain factors. You must subtract from your deduction any tax-advantaged funds, such as from a Coverdell education savings account, that you used to pay for your own schooling or professional development courses. Your deduction is limited to the amount of your teaching expenses that exceed any interest earned on Series EE or U.S. savings bonds if you’ve excluded this interest from your taxable income because you used the money to pay for educational expenses.
Employee Business Expenses
It used to be that you could deduct the balance of your expenses as unreimbursed employee business expenses if they exceeded the limit. But this required teachers to itemize their deductions and it was a miscellaneous deduction. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated that deduction beginning in 2018 through at least 2025. The Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act of 2015 made the above-the-line educator expense deduction permanent, however, and it indexed it for inflation, too. Although the limit remained at $250 from 2015 through 2021, it increased to $300 for the 2022 tax year.
