Did you serve on a jury last year? Did your employer keep paying your salary, but require you to turn over your jury fees to the company coffers? Well, guess what? You still have to report those jury fees as taxable income.
Sound unfair? Well, it's not as bad as it sounds IF you claim a special deduction designed to make sure you're not taxed on money that just passed through your hands. Although you won't see it mentioned anywhere on the tax forms, you can claim a deduction for jury fees you received in 2003 but had to turn over to your employer.
Report your jury fee "income" on your tax return as "other income" on line 21 of the form 1040.
To even things out, claim a deduction for the same amount. Unfortunately, there's no special line for it on the forms, so it's easy to miss. Don't make that mistake. You include the amount of forfeited fees on line 33 of your form 1040, where you tote up all of your other adjustments to income. On the dotted line next to the figure, write "jury pay" and the amount. You'll subtract it to offset that phantom income you reported on line 21.
GETTING STARTED
