Humor

52 Things Parents of Kids with Special Needs Wish They Could Have Deducted on Their Taxes

Unless you applied for an extension on your taxes this year, the annual rush to find deductions ended yesterday on Tax Day 2017. Parents of children with disabilities may have found legit deductions for their children's medical care, therapy, and other special needs, but that stuff really doesn't scratch the surface of the expenses we wish we could declare, does it? Wouldn't it be great if the government appreciated the importance of the following expenditures and allowed us to deduct the cost of: 1. Parenting books 2. Books written for professionals that we try to carve our way through 3. Shelves to hold all those books 4. Post-It notes and highlighters for marking up those books 5. Copies of book pages to distribute to teachers and other professionals 6. Copies of reports from some professionals to pass to other professionals 7. Postage for mailing all those reports around 8. Postage for letters berating professionals for not paying attention to the reports 9. Postage for endless insurance paperwork 10. Medicinal coffee 11. Mail-order therapy items we always believe are going to make a difference 12. Storage for all the therapy items our kid played with once and tossed aside 13. Fidgets of all sorts 14. Items to satisfy our child's fixations and obsessions 15. Trampolines 16. Ball pits 17. Admission to or food purchased at places with trampolines and ball pits 18. Special food purchased to avoid our child's allergies or sensory challenges 19. Food purchased in ongoing experiment to find something our child will eat 20. Travel to out-of-town specialists and therapists 21. Travel to out-of-district schools 22. Travel to conferences on our child's disabilities 23. Fees to attend those conferences 24. Educational materials purchased at those conferences 25. Conference swag 26. Internet service, needed for research and respite 27. Cell phone service, needed because we have to be available to everyone at all times 28. Smartphones, because we can never miss an e-mail 29. Medicinal chocolate 30. Specialized clothing to fit our child's devices and other needs 31. Clothing purchased and never worn because it didn't feel right 32. Clothing we've destroyed in an effort to adapt it 33. Multiple attempts at homemade weighted vests 34. Store-bought weighted vests 35. Weighted pencils, shoes, lap animals, etc. 36. Specialized pencils to help with writing 37. Specialized paper for writing on 38. Folders and binders for all the IEPs and reports we receive from the school 39. Cabinets and bins to hold all those folders and binders 40. Medicinal baked goods for mood-lifting after IEP meetings 41. Calendars, scheduling systems, and apps for keeping track of school and medical appointments 42. End-of-year gifts for teachers, paraprofessionals, therapists, bus drivers, bus aides, etc. 43. iPad for helping our child learn, grow, and pass time in boring places 44. Apps for iPad 45. In-app purchases our child made without our knowledge 46. Other business expenses for our full-time job as freelance insurance negotiator 47. Other business expenses for our full-time job as freelance advocate 48. Other business expenses for our full-time job as freelance at-home therapist 49. Other business expenses for our full-time job as freelance tutor 50. Other business expenses for our full-time job as freelance nurse 51, Other business expenses for our full-time job as freelance chauffeur 52. A vacation, because maybe that would inspire us to take one.