Moving this year? It may be a great tax advantage.

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See if your moving expenses qualify for a deduction.

If you moved as a result of a job change or to start a new business, your expenses are more than likely eligible for a tax deduction.

Moving Expenses Tax Deduction Eligibility Requirements
  • Your move must be in close relation to both the place and time of the start of your work at your new location. You can include moving expenses accumulated within 1 year from the date you started to work at the new location. A move usually relates closely in place when the distance from your new living quarters to your new job’s locale is not more than the distance from the last place you lived to your new job’s location.
  • Your new place of business has to be at least 50 miles greater from where you used to live than your former workplace location was from your former home. If you had no previous job, your new place of business’s location must be at least 50 miles from your former residence.
  • If you work for someone else, you have to have worked full-time for at least 39 weeks during the first 12 months right after your arrival in the general area of your new employer’s location.
  • If you work for yourself, you have to have worked full-time for at least 39 weeks during the first 12 months and for a sum of at minimum 78 weeks during the first 24 months right after your arrival in the general area of your new work location.

There are exceptions to these requirements in the event of death, disability and involuntary separation, among other things. Also, if you are in the military and had to move, you do not have to meet the requirements to be eligible.

What You Can Deduct
  • Moving Truck Rental
  • Moving Company Costs
  • Moving equipment such as boxes, hand trucks, etc
  • Gas for moving truck
  • Lodging if you had to drive overnight
  • You cannot expense meals
  • You cannot expense any moving expense that’s reimbursable by an employer

Use Form 3903 to figure your moving expenses.