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NEW YORK — In recent years, thousands of the nation's teachers have claimed a deduction of up to $250 on their federal income tax returns for out-of-pocket costs for crayons, construction paper and other classroom supplies.

They'll be eligible for a similar deduction this year, but they won't find the line to claim it on their Form 1040 federal income tax return. That's because the provision, which had been due to expire, wasn't renewed by Congress until after the Internal Revenue Service had printed up all the forms that Americans will use to report their 2006 income.

Several other popular deductions also are missing from the 1040s — one for higher education tuition and fees, another for the state and local sales tax deductions.

Professional tax preparers are aware of the missing deductions and can help taxpayers claim them; tax preparation software programs have been updated to include them.

But paper filers will have to do it themselves, and they can get help from guidelines at www.irs.gov, the IRS' Web page.

"Things got kind of messed up because Congress didn't finish with the legislation until too late for the IRS to do anything about it," said tax attorney Donna LeValley, contributing editor for J.K. Lasser's "Your Income Tax" guide.

"These deductions were popular, and they all had their own lines on the tax forms," she added. "What's going to be confusing is that they're now sharing lines with something that doesn't necessarily have any association."

For example, to claim the teacher's deduction, a taxpayer will need to go to line 23 of form 1040. The line is labeled "Archer MSA deduction," and it's where a taxpayer normally would claim a contribution to an Archer medical savings account.

But this year, a teacher can write the letter "E" for "educator expense adjustment" next to the line and claims up to $250.

The state and local sales-tax deduction is especially important to taxpayers who itemize deductions and who live in the seven states that do not have an income tax, including Florida, Wyoming and Texas. These people can deduct the amount of sales taxes they paid in 2006 rather than the state and local income taxes that residents of other states claim.

To claim the sales tax deduction, taxpayers need to go to line 5 of "Schedule A — Itemized Deductions" for Form 1040, which is labeled "State and local income taxes."

The taxpayer then must write the letters "ST" indicating that the sales tax deduction is being claimed. The IRS has details on how to claim this deduction in its Publication 600, and it has a new online sales tax calculator at www.irs.gov.

The higher education tuition deduction allows taxpayers to take a deduction of up to $4,000 for college tuition and fees.

Taxpayers can claim the deduction for themselves, their spouses or their dependents on line 35 of Form 1040, labeled "Domestic production activities deduction," by writing in the letter "T" to indicate that a "tuition" deduction is claimed.

The deduction is for singles with adjusted gross income of $80,000 or less and to those who are married filing jointly with adjusted income of $160,000 or less.