tax writeoff?

The date the camera is put into business use is the date you should use. There are a lot of other factors not mentioned in your post that will determine if the 2106 miscellaneous itemized deduction (Depreciation or 179 expensing of the camera) will have any benefit to you.

You can include equipment as part of qualified education expenses only if they are required as a condition of enrollment and must be paid to the school. Then you can take the lifetime learning credit or tuition and fees deduction, provided you qualify for it (as long as your AGI is not too high, etc). From your next paragraph, it seems you can buy the cameria anywhere you want, so it would not be deductible

But by the time start residency, might not possibly be considered as a business expense rather than educational???

If he buys his equipment on May 10th, or anytime in the year, and residency starts July 1, then the equipment is still a qualified expense as long as it is required to be purchased from the university as a condition of enrollment.

For an qualified educational expense, yes...I'm suggesting if it isn't purchased from the university as was implied, perhaps it would be a business expense rather than educational...

You will have an unreimbursed employee business expense reported on Form 2106 and deductible on Schedule A as a miscellaneous itemized deduction. There are a number of limits on the usefulness of this deduction.

First, only the business use percentage of the cost of the equipment is deductible. Others have mentioned IRC Section179 which would allow an immediate tax write off in the first year. That is available only if business use is greated than 50%. If business use falls below 50% in a later year you would have to recapture (include in taxable income) much of the original deduction.

Second, total miscellaneous itemized deductions are reduced by 2% of adjusted gross income. Only the remaining excess reduces taxable income.

Third, itemized deductions only provide a tax benefit of the total exceeds the standard deduction for your filing status.

He better hope it's a business expense rather than educational. From the facts of the OP (stated and inferred) there is no tax deduction if the equipment is an educational expense.

The item is for educational use, not business use, so how does that impact section 179?

Also, a camera would normally be depreciable as 5 year property. So if your business use drops to below 50% after 5 years, then is there anything to recapture?

And fourth, misc expenses on schedule A are subject to AMT.

A medical resident is paid for her work. Therefore, business use.

Seth

As Seth indicated, being an employee is a trade or business even if the employee learns stuff.

One more time. If by chance this is an educational activity of the OP then the OP has NO deduction.