Outside Things

[mema]

Couple questions.
We took down our deck because we had animals going under and doing their business. We got a dumpster to get rid of the wood. Is any of that deductable? How about next spring when we lay a patio?
I also redid some of our play area. I built a "playzone" with a wood border and added wood chips. What kind of expense caterogory can I enter that in on MMK?
TIA

[TomCopeland]

Outside things

Assuming you used the deck for business purposes when it was there, you can deduct the time-space percentage of the cost of removing it as a repair/maintenance expense.
When you put in a patio next year, depreciate it over 15 years (land improvement). If you had put the patio in this year you could have taken advantage of the 100% bonus depreciation rule that allows you to claim the entire business portion of the cost in 2011. Oh well.
The wood chips are clearly a repair expense. The wood border can be deducted all in 2011 using the 100% bonus depreciation rule, rather than depreciating it. Enter it under land improvement on MM.

[mema]

Thanks! Unfortunately it wasn't in the budget to do this year. Hopefully it will be next year! The smell was just so bad that no one wanted to play there.