The conference circuit after tax reform

"You know," I've said to various people over the last few weeks, "we can no longer deduct conference expenses on our taxes."

"Really?"

"Yeah, they fell under the heading of  'unreimbursed employee expenses,' and those are no longer tax-deductible."

In the scheme of things, "academics no longer able to deduct conference expenses"  (or research travel, or books, or work-related technology and subscriptions, or..) is probably not high on anyone's list, unless you were an academic who itemized their taxes. But I do wonder what kind of knock-on effect this is going to have on the culture of conference-going.  Depending on the conference's location, it can easily run $1000 minimum for plane, hotel, and registration; unless you're at a tony R1 (and, quite frankly, not necessarily even then), it's unlikely that the university will provide enough funding even to subsidize the cost of the flight.  Prior to the tax reform bill, you could at least console yourself with the knowledge that some of that money would come back on your tax return.  For some people, the disappearance of even that buffer may be a breaking point, even though conferences may also be the only opportunity academics at more isolated campuses have to see other people in their field. 

It will be interesting to see if this shift alters the habit of "conference-hopping," or if it spurs alternatives to the traditional conference.   More to the point, will it have any effect on expectations that faculty will attend conferences to demonstrate professional development and engagement? Or will faculty unions ask for more funding in exchange for maintaining, to a greater or lesser degree, current expectations?

 

 

Comments

[Roger]

K is a thousand, so $1000K is 1,000,000 dollars. If it really does cost that much minimum for plane, hotel, and registration it looks as if David Lodge's novel Small World - my source for information on academic conferences - is even less realistic than I'd thought it.

[Miriam]

Oi gevalt! A very pricey conference indeed! (Typo fixed.)

[Jonathan Dresner]

Worse, of course, with budget crunches, our travel budgets are just about to get slashed (nothing official yet, but I don't see how they survive the next contraction).

[R Lapides]

We shouldn't focus only on ourselves Think of the money we're freeing up for the super-rich