Schedule A is also known by
tax preparers and the
IRS as
Schedule A, Itemized Deductions. The
Schedule A Form is the tax form that
transfers all of a flight crewmember's individual
itemized
deductions directly to the flight
crewmember's IRS Form 1040. Items such as medical and dental expenses, taxes
paid, interest paid, gifts to charities, casualty and theft loss, etc., are all
captured on Schedule A. Schedule A also receives the
aviation-related travel expenses and
employee
business expenses from
IRS Form 2106.
Think of Schedule A as a middle-man for
itemized
deductions. Using an airline pilot's
employee business expenses as an example, the pilot would enter all of those
airline job expenses on IRS Form 2106 (EZPERDIEM.COM
provides a simple online method to help pilots and flight attendants write off
aviation-related employee business expenses, including the
per diem deduction).
IRS Form 2106 has instructions on it to guide
the taxpayer through what to do with each expense (example:
M&IE,
travel expenses).
Once complete, IRS Form 2106 has the airline
pilot transfer the number generated on it over to Schedule A. Schedule
A makes adjustments (example: the
2% limit) to
that value, and the number from Schedule A is then transferred to the
airline pilot's IRS Form 1040.
If the airline
pilot uses tax software packages such as TurboTax or TaxCut, then all of
this transferring happens automatically, and all of the appropriate forms are
generated based on the answers to the airline
pilot's tax questions asked from the software package.
