The only support the college provides is photocopying, and that is only if you go through the copy center. If you use the copier in the departmental office, you have to pay for each copy…the other day when I was standing there the departmental secretary astonished some poor adjunct wretch by demanding $7.25 after the woman copied a few pages for her classes. Otherwise, the only resource the school provides for teaching is a classroom. There’s not even an adjunct faculty coffee room…not so much as a place to sit down in quiet between classes.

One of the criteria for determining whether someone is an independent contractor is whether you–the hiring entity–provide supplies and tools to do the job. If the employer does not do so, a strong argument can be made that the “employee” is really an independent contractor.

In any event, for employees as well as for independent contractors, if your employer requires that you use your own supplies, equipment and office space to do the job, you can deduct them.

You really should get a book (NOLO would be good) on self-employment. One with a chapter on what you can deduct.

I’m not self-employed, nor do I do a long form. So I don’t really need to know this stuff…

I think I can deduct mileage, for sure, associated with FaM and visiting editorial clients (one of whom does rack up a bunch of miles!). Love your idea of adding trips to estate sales and thrift stores…one would have to be sure to blog about any trips for which one attempted to claim mileage.

The S-corporation can buy stuff with pre-tax dollars. It paid for the MacBook with dollars that were worth 15% or 20% more than net dollars. Recently, too, I realized that (duh!) it can pay for the New York Times and it may even be able to cover the high-speed Internet connection, since I use it almost exclusively for FaM and teaching. It pays for BlueHost, Mrs. Micah, and the domain name. It could pay for membership in the recently ballyhooed trade group, and it certainly could cover meals and membership in the state book publisher’s association.

In 2010, Medicare, COBRA, and long-term care insurance will all be deductible against my fantastically reduced income. If it looks like that could change in 2011, I’m not averse to decommissioning the S-Corp and reconstituting the Copyeditor’s Desk as a sole proprietorship. Certainly that would push down my AGI by making more of the activities associated with teaching and the little business deductible, and that would allow me to earn more freelancing while keeping the medical bills over the threshold of deductibility.

That’s assuming they stay deductible. Everything’s up for grabs just now. We’ll have to see how these arcane rules change over the next year or two.

Your blog/editing biz do constitute self-employment. SE is “valuable” b/c you can deduct a lot OFF the top. You can even take a LOSS off your other income! So, let’s say you make $5000 from your side biz.

Since you write about financial issues–you can take mileage when you go to the library to research. You probably could take mileage when you go to an estate sale or thrift store. It’s over 50 cents/mile these days, btw.

I had a friend who was a poet in addition to her teaching gig. Since she was a writer, she deducted from her poetry biz (from which she made very little) every book and newspaper that entered her home.

Your expenses can bring your earnings to zero. They can even create a LOSS which you can deduct from your other income.

So, if you make $5000 from your biz and have $6000 in biz expenses, you can take a $1000 loss against your teaching salary.

I doubt you can deduct medicaid etc. I was suggesting that you deduct your COBRA expenses.

I don’t know if you can take losses like that with an S corp. But you can from sole proprietroships. In fact, you can take 3 years of losses. At that point, the IRS says: it’s not a biz; it’s a hobby.

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