Several forum members have posted that an advantage to mystery shopping outside NV was that they could deduct business expenses, whereas NV regulations classified mystery shoppers as employees and thereby prevented NV shoppers from claiming business expenses such as automobile mileage deductions. This was but no longer is a false assumption.

The main difference was that non-NV shoppers claimed business expenses on Schedule C, while NV shoppers claimed their business expenses (including the $.xx/mile for automobile) on Form 2106, which is the form that my tax preparer used since my first year as a mystery shopper. edited to reflect change in tax law - see my post below.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2020 04:28PM by AZwolfman.

I thought that Trump changed the deductions that you could claim if you are an employee!

So did I.

Form 2106: "for use only by Armed Forces reservists, qualified performing artists, fee-basis state or local government officials, and employees with impairment-related work expenses)"

How does this apply to secret shoppers in NV? Don't think it does.

@2stepps wrote:

I thought that Trump changed the deductions that you could claim if you are an employee!

I stand corrected; I had not read the instructions for this year yet when I started this topic. Form 2106 used to read that the form coud be used if, "You are an employee deducting ordinary and necessary expenses attributable to your job. An ordinary expense is one that is common and accepted in your field of trade, business, or profession. A necessary expense is one that is helpful and appropriate for your business. An expense does not have to be required to be considered necessary." It now reads for 2019 as Boridi stated above.

I guess this means that an employee can no longer even deduct expenses for a company required uniform? Apparently Dear Leader has suspended deductions for unreimbursed employee expenses...bummer for all of us who work for a living! Hopefully the next administration will fix this. I did not use this form the previous 2 years, because standard deduction was better. I'm grateful for your responses that may have prevented me from reporting automobile expenses for NV shops. Fortunately I still have over 12,000 miles @$.58 that I can deduct on Schedule C for my non-NV shops.

I think I should leave this topic up so that other NV employee shoppers do not mistakenly take deductions for unreimbursed work expenses (which used to be allowed until a couple years ago). What do you all think?