HELP! I'm a 100% telecommuting W2 employee & lost my home office deduction!

[progree]

4. I don't quite understand -- do they not allow the deductions, or is it that itemizing deductions

does you no good, because your standard deduction (nearly doubled under the TCJA), exceeds your itemized deductions?

As an aside note, the near doubling of the standard deduction is a good thing for taxpayers, but then the main bad part is that they also took away the personal exemptions, that were $4,050 singles / $9,100 married filing jointly in 2017, which almost wiped out the increase in the standard deduction. And more than wiped it out for most taxpayers that itemized in the past.

And more than wiped it out for taxpayers that itemized both in the past and in 2018, as in my case -- the change in standard deduction didn't do me any good; meanwhile, I lost the $4,050 personal exemption so I'm out $4,050.