For that type of employee, it would all fly under the standard deduction anyway, so the IRS would not care. (Unless you had a side-business making $$ on this.) This is the first Raymond Chen post I've read which seems kinda dumb and pointless. Oh yeah I need to deduct my copy of random DOS app DBPieGraphicsPro-VII, which was left on a table at work.
It sounded to me that he's just responding to a frequently asked readers question. And I'd guess it's more likely for people to ask such question if they're not familiar with US taxation.
