I was going to say, in Australia you would be able to claim that as a work expense against your income, reducing your tax owed.

But it looks like in the US, you would need to be self employed or own a business where it is an expense. Which is a bummer.

Well yeah. Like my bills aren’t going down, so taking a haircut on the salary isn’t really a great option.

> I would most certainly work the extra hours without it.

If PRs dropped by 95% then you'd have to work 20 times more hours to compensate. If you work 2 hours per week it's doable but if more than it's strenuous to impossible.

And you lose your job to the guy who did spend their 12K.