If your employer required you to have your own tools to work at a job, my impression is that you can deduct the cost of those tools. For example, our service engineers must have their own tools.
If you must buy your uniforms and steel-toed shoes for work. The first year of work when you are getting these things set up can be expensive.
My impression is that many of the things that one would deduct on a Schedule C (if you had a business) could go in this category. I have a little income from consulting, so I put these kinds of deductions on my Schedule C rather than on Schedule A.
Edited to add: IRS stats from 2003 show that about 9% of individual tax returns actually claim this deduction.
