Note: According to NCC Director Page Putnam Miller, this spring when the Congressional committees dealing with tax issues were considering technical corrections for the tax law, they gave brief consideration to allowing professional, expense deductions for the cost of personal computers. But they concluded there would be a “huge hemorrhaging of revenue” if the deduction of computers for professional use is allowed. In the future, however, there may be opportunity for change.
I should like to draw historians’ attention to a problem that emphasizes the issue of professional status and the real relationship of scholars to the institutions that employ them.
The Internal Revenue Service’s rule disallowing computers and computer-related costs as professional expenses for scholars was brought home to me when I underwent an audit by the IRS in April 1987 for my 1985 return. My claim for depreciation, repairs, and sup plies for an IBM-PC, which I purchased in 1984, keep in my office, and use virtually exclusively for teaching and research-related work, was disallowed by the IRS.
The IRS, the auditor insisted, was bound by rules based upon law, according to which a computer would be deductible for an employee only if it were acquired as a requirement of the employer as a condition of employment and at the convenience of the employer.
I believe this law to be arbitrary and rigid. An important principle is involved here; namely, that scholars of all kinds should be entitled to deduct the legitimate expenses connected with their research as professional expenses—personal computers included.
Among the arguments I used in support of deductions for computers—which the IRS contends are irrelevant even if true—was, for instance, the extent of professional use. I was able to show by a log book that the computer was used the majority of working days for three long articles, seven book reviews, correspondence, writing tests and syllabi, grant proposals, and everything for which I formerly used my electric typewriter.
Furthermore, I argued the computer improved productivity and efficiency, saving my time as well as that of the office staff. I also pointed out publishing requirements. A publisher with whom I have a major book contract encourages the submission of manuscripts on disks; one journal in my field requires disk submission; and another organization likewise does so.
The IRS also ignores the needs of scholarship and of keeping up and advancing in one’s field. I pointed out that there are many kinds of data manipulation, organization of bibliographies, and other scholarly tasks impossible to do manually, which are now made easy with computers and proper programs. The encouragement of expanded computer use by my university and the fact that the computer remains in my office did not impress the IRS.
What would count as justifying the purchase and maintenance of a computer as a professional expense in the eyes of the IRS? Apparently nothing short of an official letter from the university stating that unless I bought and used a computer I would lose my employment or otherwise be penalized. By this same formula, nothing that I or other scholars regularly buy and use in our work, and regularly count as professional expenses without any challenge from the IRS, would count either. The university has never told me I would lose my job if I did not buy books, or join professional organizations, or subscribe to professional journals, or go to professional meetings, or give papers, or publish books and articles, or take notes and make bibliography cards, or perform a dozen other duties. Yet, of course, scholars are expected to do these things, and rewards come in terms of tenure, promotion, and rises in salary.
I am asking fellow scholars and other interested parties to help put across the point that a scholar’s investment in a personal computer and the software and equipment needed to run it for scholarly purposes is a completely necessary and justifiable professional expense. It should be treated the same as typewriters, books, or any other tool of the profession.
Paul W. Schroeder is with the history department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
