Uniforms, dues, medicals and required gear

Required clothing, union dues, training and the airman medical are read on different lines. We state the framework and which items we do not answer.

For an employee, the deductions that would have been miscellaneous itemized deductions are disallowed, and Public Law 119-21 removed the end date from that suspension. Publication 529 lists the only remaining routes for unreimbursed employee expenses, and no authority we retrieved puts flight crew in any of them.

What the rules say

Uniforms and required clothing

Clothing sits between two provisions: section 162 allows ordinary and necessary business expenses, and section 262 disallows personal, living and family expenses. The retrieved authority draws no line by occupation, and no retrieved authority in this vertical addresses shoes, luggage, cosmetics, toiletries or ordinary clothing that is adaptable to general use. For an employee, an unreimbursed cost of this kind runs into the disallowance of miscellaneous itemized deductions before any characterisation question is reached.

Union and professional dues

Union and professional dues are treated according to whose trade or business they are an expense of. For an employee, dues of this kind fall on the miscellaneous itemized side and are disallowed under current law unless one of the named statutory categories applies. Publication 529 lists those categories, and no retrieved authority places flight crew among them.

Training, ratings and the medical

Regulation 1.162-5 separates education that maintains or improves skills required in an existing employment, trade or business, or that meets the express requirements of an employer or of applicable law as a condition of keeping an established employment relationship, status or rate of compensation, from education that is a personal or capital expenditure. Training taken to enter an occupation is a different question from training taken to keep qualifications current in one already carried on. The retrieved authority states no result for any particular certificate or medical requirement, and for an employee the current disallowance applies to unreimbursed costs regardless.

Required equipment and supplies

Equipment used in the work is tested item by item against the ordinary and necessary condition in section 162 and the personal-expense boundary in section 262, together with whether the cost was reimbursed. An employer requirement is a fact about the job, not a conclusion about the tax treatment, and no retrieved authority in this vertical addresses any specific item of flight equipment.

What we are not saying here

Still being read

These are the questions we have not finished reading the authority for. They stay listed here until we have, and until then we do not state an answer.

Where this comes from

Every statement above comes from one of these. Each link goes to the official text, with the body that issued it and the date we read it.

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