Detail A
Rooms, measured
Length times width for each room, or square feet. Mark the office; the share works itself out. A whole-home figure can override the sum.
For people who run a business from home
Put your home office on a square footing.
Measure the room, log what the house costs, and see the home-office deduction worked out both ways the IRS allows: the simplified $5 a square foot, and the regular method with its income limit and carryover. From your own numbers, with every step shown.
Run the free estimate Open an office file
Free estimate, no sign-up. Office Pass $1.95/month, free during preview. Not tax advice.
Worked example
Two ways to count the same room.
A consultant owns a 2,000 sq ft home and uses a 200 sq ft room only for the business, all year. The business earned $30,000 and spent $5,000 on things other than the home. These figures are computed by the same code the estimate uses.
Simplified
$1,000
200 sq ft × $5. Nothing to keep but the measurement.
Regular
$2,661
10% of mortgage interest, taxes, insurance and utilities, plus office-only repairs, plus depreciation.
Here the regular method is larger by $1,661 — but $1,400 of the $2,661 regular total is mortgage interest and taxes an itemizer could deduct anyway, and the $641 of depreciation is taxed back when the home is sold. Open this example in the estimate and change any number.
The order of the limit
The income the business leaves is filled in a fixed order.
Apart from mortgage interest and real-estate taxes, the home cannot push the business into a loss. Those two come first and always count. Operating costs come next, then depreciation last, each only while the limit lasts. Whatever does not fit is carried to the next year you use actual expenses.
- Limit $2,500
- 1 · Interest + taxes $1,400
- 2 · Operating $620 of $620
- 3 · Depreciation $480 of $641
- Carried $161
An office file
One private page per tax year, ready for whoever files the return.
Detail B
Costs through the year
Each bill on the day it comes: utilities, insurance, interest, taxes, rent, repairs. Whole home or office only. The worksheet updates as you go.
Detail C
The use tests, in your words
Exclusive use, regular use, principal place of business: tick what is true and write how. It is the record you would want if anyone asked.
Detail D
Year sheet and carryover
A one-page print for your preparer. With the Office Pass, what did not fit this year flows into next year's page by itself.
Open an office file No account. No email. Just a private link.
Prices
The estimate is free. The Office Pass keeps the years.
Free during preview — nothing is charged yet
- Monthly
- $1.95
- Yearly
- $19.50
- Filing Week (7 days)
- $1.00
Made for
- Sole proprietors and single-member LLCs filing Schedule C
- Freelancers, consultants, tutors, bookkeepers, designers
- Makers, home bakers and online sellers with a dedicated room or corner
- Owners and renters, all year or part of it
Not made for
- Employees working from home: IRS Publication 587 gives an employee's home office no federal deduction, apart from a few groups who file Form 2106 (such as Armed Forces reservists and qualified performing artists)
- Daycare providers (they use a time-based share), more than one home, or more than one business per file
- Casualty losses, separate improvements, state rules
- Deciding for you: it shows the arithmetic; you or your preparer decide