I had been looking for a Faculty position but nothing worked to my favor unfortunately. So I was unemployed in 2023. But as a researcher, I still attended a few academic conferences (mainly Canadian ones, but also a conference in the US) and paid memberships to a few academic associations (mainly Canadian) with expenses out of my own pocket because this is important to build my research profile and visibility in the field. Although I was umeployed, I did have rental and interest as “income”. So I was looking into this to see if these are eligible expenses for my case. My questions are: (1) Are the academic memberships and convention registration fees considered as “professional membership dues” and “convention expenses” in the first place? Honestly, these memberships are essential for anyone in academia, but I am not sure if they would be from the tax-filing perspective? (2) If they are eligible expenses, should I only include the “Canadian” memberships and conventions, not the US ones? (3) Would my “unemployed” status mean I would NOT be eligible to report these fees in my tax filing? Thanks.
Convention costs are not deductible unless you have business (self-employment) income - then the convention costs are a business expense.
Professional memberships are deductible if they are required by law - see below:
Doesn’t matter if you were employed or unemployed, but it can only be “deducted” if you had taxable income to deduct it FROM.
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