Expenses of Producing Income

You deduct investment expenses (other than interest expenses) as miscellaneous itemized deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040). To be deductible, these expenses must be ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred:

1. To produce or collect income, or
2. To manage property held for producing income.

The expenses must be directly related to the income or income-producing property, and the income must be taxable to you.

The deduction for most income-producing expenses is subject to a 2% limit that also applies to certain other miscellaneous itemized deductions. The amount deductible is limited to the total of these miscellaneous deductions that is more than 2% of your adjusted gross income.

For information on how to report expenses of producing income, see How To Report Investment Expenses, later.

Attorney or accounting fees. You can deduct attorney or accounting fees that are necessary to produce or collect taxable income. However, in some cases, attorney or accounting fees are part of the basis of property. See Basis of Investment Property in chapter 4.

Automatic investment service and dividend reinvestment plans. A bank may offer its checking account customers an automatic investment service so that, for a charge, each customer can choose to invest a part of the checking account each month in common stock. Or, a bank that is a dividend disbursing agent for a number of publicly-owned corporations may set up an automatic dividend reinvestment service. Through that service, cash dividends are reinvested in more shares of stock, after the bank deducts a service charge.

A corporation in which you own stock also may have a dividend reinvestment plan. This plan lets you choose to use your dividends to buy more shares of stock in the corporation instead of receiving the dividends in cash.

You can deduct the monthly service charge you pay to a bank to participate in an automatic investment service. If you participate in a dividend reinvestment plan, you can deduct any service charge subtracted from your cash dividends before the dividends are used to buy more shares of stock. Deduct the charges in the year you pay them.

Clerical help and office rent. You can deduct office expenses, such as rent and clerical help, that you pay in connection with your investments and collecting the taxable income on them.

Cost of replacing missing securities. To replace your taxable securities that are mislaid, lost, stolen, or destroyed, you may have to post an indemnity bond. You can deduct the premium you pay to buy the indemnity bond and the related incidental expenses.

You may, however, get a refund of part of the bond premium if the missing securities are recovered within a specified time. Under certain types of insurance policies, you can recover some of the expenses.

If you receive the refund in the tax year you pay the amounts, you can deduct only the difference between the expenses paid and the amount refunded. If the refund is made in a later tax year, you must include the refund in income in the year you received it, but only to the extent that the expenses decreased your tax in the year you deducted them.

Fees to collect income. You can deduct fees you pay to a broker, bank, trustee, or similar agent to collect investment income, such as your taxable bond or mortgage interest, or your dividends on shares of stock.

Fees to buy or sell. You cannot deduct a fee you pay to a broker to acquire investment property, such as stocks or bonds. You must add the fee to the cost of the property. See Basis of Investment Property in chapter 4.

You cannot deduct any broker's fees, commissions, or option premiums you pay (or that were netted out) in connection with the sale of investment property. They can be used only to figure gain or loss from the sale. See Reporting Capital Gains and Losses, in chapter 4, for more information about the treatment of these sale expenses.

Investment counsel and advice. You can deduct fees you pay for counsel and advice about investments that produce taxable income. This includes amounts you pay for investment advisory services.

Safe deposit box rent. You can deduct rent you pay for a safe deposit box if you use the box to store taxable income-producing stocks, bonds, or other investment-related papers and documents. If you also use the box to store tax-exempt securities or personal items, you can deduct only part of the rent. See Tax-exempt income under Nondeductible Expenses, later, to figure what part you can deduct.

State and local transfer taxes. You cannot deduct the state and local transfer taxes you pay when you buy or sell securities. If you pay these transfer taxes when you buy securities, you must treat them as part of the cost of the property. If you pay these transfer taxes when you sell securities, you must treat them as a reduction in the amount realized.

Trustee's commissions for revocable trust. If you set up a revocable trust and have its income distributed to you, you can deduct the commission you pay the trustee for managing the trust to the extent it is to produce or collect taxable income or to manage property. However, you cannot deduct any part of the commission that is for producing or collecting tax-exempt income or for managing property that produces tax-exempt income.

If you are a cash-basis taxpayer and pay the commissions for several years in advance, you must deduct a part of the commission each year. You cannot deduct the entire amount in the year you pay it.

Investment expenses from pass-through entities. If you hold an interest in a partnership, S corporation, real estate mortgage investment conduit (REMIC), or a nonpublicly offered regulated investment company (mutual fund), you can deduct your share of that entity's investment expenses. A partnership or S corporation will show your share of these expenses on your Schedule K-1. A nonpublicly offered mutual fund will indicate your share of these expenses in box 5 of Form 1099-DIV, or on an equivalent statement. Publicly-offered mutual funds are discussed later.

If you hold an interest in a REMIC, any expenses relating to your residual interest investment will be shown on line 3b of Schedule Q (Form 1066). Any expenses relating to your regular interest investment will appear in box 5 of Form 1099-INT or box 7 of Form 1099-OID.

Report your share of these investment expenses on Schedule A (Form 1040), subject to the 2% limit, in the same manner as your other investment expenses.

Including mutual fund or REMIC expenses in income. Your share of the investment expenses of a REMIC or a nonpublicly offered mutual fund, as described above, are considered to be indirect deductions through that pass-through entity. You must include in your gross income an amount equal to the amount of the expenses allocated to you, whether or not you are able to claim a deduction for those expenses. If you are a shareholder in a nonpublicly offered mutual fund, you must include on your return the full amount of ordinary dividends or other distributions of stock, as shown in box 1 of Form 1099-DIV or an equivalent statement. If you are a residual interest holder in a REMIC, you must report as ordinary income on Schedule E (Form 1040) the total amounts shown on lines 1b and 3b of Schedule Q (Form 1066). If you are a REMIC regular interest holder, you must include the amount of any expense allocation you received on line 8a of Form 1040.

Publicly-offered mutual funds. Publicly-offered mutual funds, generally, are funds that are traded on an established securities exchange. These funds do not pass investment expenses through to you. Instead, the dividend income they report to you in box 1 of Form 1099-DIV is already reduced by your share of investment expenses. Therefore, you cannot deduct the expenses on your return.

Include the amount from box 1 of Form 1099-DIV in your income.

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