You can decline your jury duty pay and mileage in most courts, but waiving jury duty pay is not as simple as tearing up the check. The court’s process, the IRS constructive receipt doctrine, and your employer’s own policy all shape whether refusing that money actually saves anyone anything, or whether it just costs you a small deduction and creates a headache.
Three Ways to Turn Down the Money
There is no single national form for this. What you do depends on the court that summoned you, and the options generally fall into three categories.
- Court donation programs. A growing number of courts let jurors check a box on their paperwork to redirect the per diem to approved charities or public funds. The court handles the transfer and you typically receive a donation receipt. This is the cleanest option, both practically and for taxes.
- Telling the clerk. If your court doesn’t run a formal donation program, call the clerk’s office and ask how to decline payment. Some courts note the waiver in their records and never issue a check. Others ask you to sign a written waiver.
- Not cashing the check. The least formal route is to accept the check and never deposit it. It works in practice, but the IRS may still treat the money as taxable because it was available to you.
Ask before you sign. Once you waive, you may not be able to reverse the decision partway through a long trial when the daily fees and mileage start adding up.
Why Refusing the Check Doesn’t Always Erase the Tax
Jury duty pay is taxable income. The IRS requires you to report it on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8h, regardless of the amount.1Internal Revenue Service. Publication 525 (2025), Taxable and Nontaxable Income The question that trips people up is whether you still owe taxes on jury pay you never actually pocketed.
In most cases, yes. Under the IRS constructive receipt doctrine, income counts as received when it is credited to your account, set apart for you, or otherwise made available to draw upon, even if you choose not to take it. Because the court makes jury pay available to every juror who serves, declining the check usually doesn’t eliminate the taxable event. You had the right to the money. You just didn’t exercise it.
Whether that matters to you depends on the amount. A federal juror earns $50 per day of attendance, with an additional $10 possible per day after ten days on a single case, plus mileage at the government privately owned vehicle rate.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1871 – Fees State fees average around $22 per day and range from nothing to roughly $50. Short trials produce small tax bills. Long trials do not.
Donating Through the Court Instead
Donation programs sidestep the constructive receipt problem. When you accept the pay and route it to a qualifying charity through a court program, you report the income and then claim a charitable contribution deduction if you itemize. The result is roughly tax-neutral instead of owing taxes on money you never spent.
Court-approved charities typically include crime victim funds, child welfare organizations, legal aid programs, and domestic violence shelters. Some states write this option into their jury service statutes and require courts to present approved charities at check-in. The court issues a receipt, which documents both the income and the deduction. If your court offers a donation program, it is almost always a better choice than simply refusing the check. Contact the clerk’s office or check the court’s website to see whether one exists in your jurisdiction.
If you don’t itemize, the deduction won’t help, and the tax hit is real but small at the amounts involved.
How Your Employer’s Policy Changes the Math
Federal law does not require employers to pay you while you serve on a jury. The Fair Labor Standards Act treats jury duty as unpaid time off, and whether your employer compensates you during service is a matter of company policy or your employment agreement.3U.S. Department of Labor. Jury Duty Several states require employers to pay full or partial wages during jury service, with the specifics varying by state.
For salaried exempt employees, there is a wrinkle worth knowing. Your employer cannot dock your salary for absences caused by jury duty, but the employer can offset any jury fees you receive against your salary for that week.4eCFR. 29 CFR 541.602 – Salary Basis Waive the fees and there is nothing to offset, so your full salary comes through untouched. For a salaried worker whose company routinely offsets jury pay, that is a real benefit.
The opposite situation is the one to watch. Some employers keep paying your full salary during jury duty on the condition that you turn the court’s per diem over to the company. If you waive the payment before you ever receive it, you may have nothing to hand over and no way to satisfy the policy. Read your employee handbook first. If your employer expects that check, don’t decline it.
When you do turn jury pay over to your employer under such a policy, you still report the jury pay as income, but you deduct the amount you turned over on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 24a.1Internal Revenue Service. Publication 525 (2025), Taxable and Nontaxable Income That adjustment is available whether or not you itemize, so it washes out cleanly.
Worth Thinking Through Before You Waive
- Length of service matters. A two-day federal trial costs you $100 in per diem. A six-week trial costs over $1,500, plus mileage. The financial impact scales fast, especially if your employer doesn’t pay you during service.
- Mileage covers real costs. A 40-mile round trip to a federal courthouse produces roughly $29 per day in reimbursement at current rates. Across a multi-week trial, that is a meaningful share of your fuel.
- Waivers may be one-way. If you sign away your pay and then decide you want it back, the clerk may not be able to reverse the decision. Ask before you sign.
- Keep any donation receipt. If you redirect pay through a court program, the receipt documents both the income and the deduction and makes your return simpler if you itemize.
For most jurors who want to give back, the easiest path is to accept the money, report it as income, and donate it, ideally through the court’s own program. You get clean documentation, the charity gets funded, and you avoid the tax ambiguity that comes with refusing the check outright.