Thanks for your insightful and thoughtful comments. One note, the author’s name is Maxwell, not Michael.

Again, thanks for the time and energy you put into your responses.

Scott Abel

The Content Wrangler

It is great to know that travel and conference expenses can be deductible for somebody looking for employment as long as they get that employment within 1 year of the conference, and as a graduate of H&R;Block’s tax course for some past year (2005?), I think it is important to point out to the readers some other reasons you can deduct expenses of a professional conference. Your audience is clearly employees looking for new work, and that makes your focus on that one tax deduction much easier to read than my added comment. But I think it is important to add other options into the continuing discussion because technical writers tend to be a varied bunch in terms of being self-employed to various degrees.

The following ideas are from my own experience with USA taxes, but I did a random Google search to get some documentation of some of my ideas from a CPA:  http://www.bus.lsu.edu/accounting/faculty/lcrumbley/tax_aspects.html>. The travel expenses and conference fees are probably deductible under the following situations

1. Your primary employment is related to the conference.

2. You are self-employed full-time and file business income and expenses.

3. You are self-employed part-time and file business income and expenses.

4. You are going to the conference in preparation to earn money this year, and you file business income and expenses.

Also, a lot of technical writers control corporations, and in these cases the corporation may pay for travel expenses for valid work reasons, in many cases making it a deductible business expenses for the corporation.

And finally, if you do related work as a hobby, but do not have short-term hopes of earning money from it, you should still save all your receipts, because if you enter the profession in future years for a profit, you may be able to add-up past-years expenses as a capital investment that can be deducted from later capital gains (or something like that)–David.

Most people know that one of the biggest problems with economic cycles is widespread fear. Hearing on the news all the time that we are probably in or entering a recession actually causes fear that limits economic growth. The reason it is done, however, is that it builds trust in our society regarding economic indicators. If we did not hear the news accurately and often, the result would be even more widespread fear based upon irrational beliefs (I am sorry if that offends everybody–it is a well accepted fact in economics). So, we should listen to economic news, but then just keep on being industrious. I hope it helps somebody to see my awkward explanations of economic cycles. Just keep on taking risks and producing!  –David

In my later school experiences, I went way out of my way to get experience in leadership, tutoring, public speaking, XML design, editing websites, just all kinds of things. Since graduating unfortunately, I got kind of stuck in a rut, but after reading your article I really feel like getting organized and–for starters–writing down all the things I have done before, and then really getting connected in the online communities and professional conferences.

One problem is that my BS is in economics, not journalism or technical writing or some other writing degree. A lot of jobs require a relevant degree, and I wondered if I was limiting myself too much choosing technical writing as an economist. (Initially I thought, no problem! And your article points me farther in that direction–there are just all kinds of things I can do–especially when you add my international business and Portuguese language experience and lots of courses in writing. Well, I don’t mean to harp on myself all day, but if I can connect with others in the community and extend your kind of help to them thru that connection it will have been well worth taking the chance of embarrassing myself a little. Thank you, Michael, for leading the way.