Home Sweet Home: Do You Qualify For Office Deductions?
If you’re a business owner working from home or an entrepreneur with a home-based side gig, you may qualify for valuable home office deductions.
But not everyone who works from home gets the tax break. Employees who work remotely can’t deduct home office expenses under current federal tax law.
To qualify for a deduction, you must use at least part of your home regularly and exclusively as either:
- Your principal place of business, or
- A place to meet with customers, clients or patients in the normal course of business.
In addition, you may be able to claim deductions for maintaining a separate structure — such as a garage — where you store products or tools used solely for business purposes.
Notably, “regular and exclusive” use means you must consistently use a specific identifiable area in your home for business. However, incidental or occasional personal use won’t necessarily disqualify you.
Rules for employees
What if you work remotely from home as an employee for an organization? Previously, people who itemized deductions could claim home office deductions as a miscellaneous expense, if the arrangement was for their employer’s convenience.
But the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act suspended miscellaneous expense deductions for […]