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• Payments made to a family member will be deducted only if the family member suffers economic loss by terminating employment or reducing hours of employment. (For this purpose, a family member is anyone, who is related to the applicant/recipient by blood, marriage, or adoption, whether the family member lives with the applicant/recipient.) • Only the portion of the payment for attendant care services that is attributable to work-related expenses can be deducted. For example, an individual pays a personal attendant to help in preparing for work, doing light housekeeping, and assisting the individual in the evening with supper. The attendant works 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday, and 2 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. However, only 2 hours per day, Monday through Friday is spent on work-related assistance, that being the time in the morning preparing for work. Therefore, the allowable IRWE is the portion of the payment to the attendant for 2 hours of work per day, for 5 days a week.
Work-related equipment: • Special equipment needed for the person to do his or her job. The equipment must be necessary due to the person’s impairment and be something that the employer is not required to provide in accordance with federal law to accommodate the person’s disabilities. Residential modifications: • For employment away from home, allowable expenses are those made for the outside of the home permitting the person to access his or her means of transportation to and from work. • Costs for modifications inside the home are not allowable when the recipient works away from home. • For the person who works at home, costs can be allowed for modifying the home to create a working space to accommodate the person’s impairment. However, any cost deducted as a business expense on the self-employed person’s income taxes, cannot be allowed as an IRWE. • Dog Guide: The type of home modifications that are allowable is determined by whether the person works away from home or in his home.
Transportation costs: • Transportation costs are allowable IRWEs in the situations explained below. Transportation costs are not allowable for the routine cost of getting to and from work in situations where it is no relation to the person's impairment. • Modification to a vehicle that is critical for the person’s use or operation and directly related to the person’s impairment, plus a mileage allowance in the amount allowed by the IRS. The cost of the vehicle is not allowable.