Job-related educational expenses generally are deductible if they’re required by your employer; the same is true for courses that maintain your professional skills. However, you can’t deduct expenses for schooling that will qualify you to enter a new line of business.
If your education qualifies, you can deduct the costs of books and lab fees as well as tuition. You also can deduct the costs of travel if you go to school from your workplace rather than from home.
Out-of-town travel to a qualifying seminar is deductible as long as your principal purpose for taking the trip is education, not pleasure. That is, you may be able to deduct the cost of traveling to a weekday course, even if you go early and spend the previous weekend on the beach.
The catch? Educational expenses are treated as miscellaneous itemized deductions, and you only can deduct such expenses to the extent they exceed 2 percent of your adjusted gross income (AGI.)
