The deadline to file taxes is April 15. Procrastinating teachers may find themselves in a mad dash to search for receipts from 2023 that provide proof of out-of-pocket spending on classroom-related items that count toward the Internal Revenue Service’s educator expense deduction.
The deduction, at $300, seems fairly stingy. And it hasn’t budged since 2022 when, for the first time since its inception 20 years earlier, the lnternal Revenue Service raised it $50—up from $250.
To put that amount in perspective, most teachers report spending their own money on classroom supplies each year, and analyses suggest they spend anywhere from $500 to more than annually on them—more than double the IRS’s educator expense deduction. Further, average annual public school K-12 teacher salaries have actually dropped by more than 6 percent from a decade ago when adjusted for .
As teachers try to do as much (or more) for their students with less, °ÄÃÅÅܹ·ÂÛ̳’s updated annual expense deduction calculator could come in handy this tax season.
See below to calculate out-of-pocket spending on classroom supplies.