Taxpayer asks: Just read your article on Forbes “Working From Home? Your Home Offices Expenses Are Probably Not Tax-Deductible.“ Now, it is as my understanding that an employee could still deduct home office if they are REQUIRED by their employer to work from home. My employer shut the doors early in March and required all…
Tax reform means some pretty significant changes for taxpayers in 2018. Want to know what’s new? Here’s what you need to know – with charts!
It’s Taxes from A to Z (2017)! S is for Simplified Option for the Home Office Deduction.
Taxpayer asks: I’m confused. Both my wife and I have home offices, each using about 5% of the total home square footage. Last year, we replaced the both the hot water heater and the washer/drier. For the hot water heater, I think it’s very clear, that improvement directly impacts our home office use, so I…
I have a love/hate relationship with my house. I hate that the screen door in the back is broken but is nearly impossible to fix because we have an old Victorian with quirky (read: non-standard and expensive to replace) sized doors and windows. The floors in my kitchen are terrible. And for about two weeks…
Every person in America has that certain uncle, brother or father that you joke does all their best work in the bathroom. Well, now you can point to Luis Bulas, a Florida accountant, as proof that best work or no, the bathroom is, in fact, not necessarily deductible as a home office expense. And nope,…
Taxpayer asks: If you run a home office, can you claim animal costs for your “guard dog” if so does it have to be a dog? Taxgirl says: Funny, I’ve gotten a couple of variations on this question. Here are my thoughts. It is clear that you can pro-rate the cost of a security system…
Taxpayer asks: After a string of robberies in my neighborhood, I decided to install an alarm system. I paid a flat fee for installation plus I pay an amount each month. Is any of this deductible on my taxes? Taxgirl says: If the property that you alarmed was your home, the answer is no. There…
Taxpayer asks: When figuring home office deduction for a separate structure like a garage, do you include the full square footage of the house and the garage or just the garage when it asks for office space? Taxgirl says: Assuming that you don’t pay separate utilities, etc., for the garage space, it makes the most…
Taxpayer asks: My question is about how to file taxes for my work. Since I’m writing a TV show blog, can I deduct my cable bills? How about my internet? Taxgirl says: Ahh, deductions, the most mysterious of tax form entries. What’s deductible? What’s not? A lot of what can be deducted is very fact-specific,…