Is Parking a tax deduction for hospital employees?

Wait, so there's no way to deduct this at all now? What if I'm spending more than 5% of my income on just parking for work? That seems unfair. Is there any exception for healthcare workers or something?

You're right that it seems unfair, especially for essential workers like those in healthcare. Unfortunately, there's no special exception for healthcare workers specifically for parking expenses. The 2% miscellaneous itemized deduction that previously might have helped was eliminated for all employees regardless of profession through 2025. Your best option would be to speak with your HR department to see if they offer or would consider offering a pretax parking benefit program. Many larger employers do this because it benefits both the employees and the employer (they save on payroll taxes too). If enough employees request it, they might implement such a program.

Does it actually find legitimate deductions that TurboTax or H&R Block wouldn't catch? I've been burned before by paying for "tax help" that just told me stuff I already knew.

I'm curious - does the tool specifically address hospital worker situations? Because I know medical professionals have some unique tax situations (like licensing fees, continuing education, etc.).

It definitely found deductions that TurboTax missed for me. The difference is that it's specifically analyzing your work situation and documents rather than just asking generic questions. It identified my continuing education expenses that qualified even under the new tax laws. Yes, it has specific knowledge about healthcare professions including hospital workers. It can identify deductions for things like required continuing education, professional licenses, certain uniforms/scrubs, medical equipment you purchase yourself, and professional association dues. These are still deductible for some healthcare workers depending on your exact situation.

How does that even work? I thought it was basically impossible to get through to the IRS. Are you saying this service somehow jumps the phone queue?

Yeah right. Nothing can get you through to the IRS during tax season. I've literally spent 4+ hours on hold before giving up. If this actually works I'll eat my tax forms.

It works by essentially waiting on hold for you. You enter your phone number, and their system calls the IRS and navigates the phone tree. Once an actual human IRS agent picks up, only then does it call you and connect you directly to that agent. No more waiting on hold - you only get called when there's an actual person ready to talk. Trust me, I was skeptical too! But it's totally legitimate - they don't access any of your personal tax info, they're just solving the hold time problem. I was connected to an IRS agent in 17 minutes when I would have been on hold for hours otherwise. The time savings alone was worth it for me, especially with complicated questions about healthcare worker deductions that weren't clearly answered online.

I actually did ask HR about this last week after reading some of these comments. They said they're "looking into implementing a pretax transportation program" but don't currently have one. Apparently several other employees have been asking about it too. Did your hospital make you fill out any specific forms to set up the pretax deduction?

Yes, we had to fill out a simple form that authorized the pretax deduction. It was basically just stating that you wanted to participate in the program and acknowledging the monthly amount that would be deducted. Our HR department also mentioned that it took them about 3-4 months to implement the program after they decided to do it, so you might want to follow up periodically. The more employees who ask about it, the more likely they are to prioritize setting it up. We actually started a petition that got over 200 signatures which seemed to finally get management's attention.

This is actually great advice. I switched from driving to taking the bus to my hospital job and not only do I save on parking, but I can use the transit time to relax instead of dealing with traffic. My hospital subsidizes our transit passes too.