Home / business planning / list of steps to calculating a home office expense deduction

list of steps to calculating a home office expense deduction

February 11, 2010 By 5 Comments

photo by baliboro

If you will show a profit this year in your business, then you can qualify for a home office deduction when figuring your taxes.  Many business owners have someone else doing their taxes for them, but if you hare doing them yourself, then this Home Office Expense Worksheet will help you figure out how much you can deduct from your profit.

Here are the steps involved.

  • Calculate the total number of square feet in your home.
  • Calculate the total number of square feet used for your business (length x width)
  • Divide the square feet for the business space by the total home square feet.
  • List the total you spent on mortgage interest
  • Calculate your total utilities for the year.
  • Calculate the total real estate taxes and insurance
  • Add those 3 things together
  • Multiply that total by the percentage of your home used for business.
  • Add maintenance and repairs spent on the business portion of your home.
  • Add the depreciation on the business portion of your home (using the MACRS 39 year method).
  • Find the total allowable home office expense deduction for your taxes.

And the uncontested winner of ListPlanIt‘s Magnetic Grocery List Notepad is. . . Kristi!

Each weekday in February, ListPlanIt.com is spotlighting an area of life that might benefit from the hundreds of lists and planning pages available through membership, ePlanners, and more, and giving you a chance to win!

Today, 2 people will be receiving the Business ePlanner, with lots of pages to help you track some of the priorities from above. All of our ePlanners are downloable bundles that can be viewed, typed into, printed, and stored neatly on your computer

Here are a list of the ways to enter each giveaway, each day.

  • leave a comment on this post,
  • tell your friends & followers about today’s giveaway on Facebook or Twitter (so easy to do when you use the Share This button at the bottom of this post) and leave a comment here linking to your profile,
  • subscribe to ListPlanIt’s RSS feed using a reader or by email and leave a comment here,blog about this giveaway and
  • then leave a comment here linking to your post.

One of each of these per day please. Come back tomorrow to see who won and to see what else we are giving away.

    list-mama-sig

Related posts:

  1. list of essentials for filing your taxes
  2. list of steps to preparing for an out-of-town conference
  3. list of steps to prepare for a move
  4. list of steps to a guest-worthy home this Thanksgiving
  5. list of steps for safely allowing your children on the web
Filed Under: business planning, ePlanners Tagged With: ,
  • Eva

    I twittered your message. Hope I did it right. I love lists. I may be trying too much technology at once here lately. Your lists are not a problem to use. They are Great.

  • Linda

    I just started gathering my stuff for taxes yesterday and didn’t have the sligfhtest idea how to break this down.Thanks and I could realy use the Business e- Planer .

  • Paula McGuire

    Home Office deductions are HUGE, and lots of people don’t understand them. Thanks for breaking it down to simple steps.

  • http://www.addresstoimpress.blogspot.com Hillary Jordan

    Thanks for the check list for the home office deduction. And I really need the Business ePlanner!!
    .-= Hillary Jordan´s last blog ..L-O-V-E is in the air! =-.

  • http://imadethis.typepad.com Jessica

    I can’t believe I forgot to comment yesterday! And I so need help with menu planning. Is the list available as a download as well?

    This is a great giveaway too! Thanks!
    .-= Jessica´s last blog ..BBQ Madness =-.