What Part of My House Can I Claim?

[jokalima]

I have a designated DC room, but use my kitchen mostly for DC things than for home things, use my hallways bathroom for DC during the day, one of the bedrooms is my son's room but he does not use it, is more a changing diaper room, and I use my living room for tv time. Even using all this of my house, I can only claim the small DC space?

Thanks

[momofsix]

If the daycare room is only used for daycare you can claim that percentage of your total square footage at 100%. The parts that are shared between daycare and family you can claim in your time/space percentage.

[sharlan]

Any room that is used indirectly for daycare goes on your time/space. That includes any room that you store daycare items in, your laundry room if you use it to store cleaning supplies or if you do daycare laundry (bibs, sheets, toys, etc).

[jokalima]

Ok, because I filed my taxes late this year... I had started it through Turbo Tax and did it like that taking examples from a DC tax place here on the web, but was not sure that I was doing things right... So decided to go to an accountant, he told me I could only claim the DC room not any other part of the house that I also used, I told him I was not sure it was right what he was saying but he insisted, anyways, the difference between what Turbo tax said and he said was more than 2,000 in returns. The difference? That in TT I claimed the other parts of house using time/percentage and he did not. his results is that I will get 500.00 back, TT said I would get more than 2,000... What should I do, is there a way to fix it?

[sharlan]

Ok, because I filed my taxes late this year... I had started it through Turbo Tax and did it like that taking examples from a DC tax place here on the web, but was not sure that I was doing things right... So decided to go to an accountant, he told me I could only claim the DC room not any other part of the house that I also used, I told him I was not sure it was right what he was saying but he insisted, anyways, the difference between what Turbo tax said and he said was more than 2,000 in returns. The difference? That in TT I claimed the other parts of house using time/percentage and he did not. his results is that I will get 500.00 back, TT said I would get more than 2,000... What should I do, is there a way to fix it?

Yes, you can refile your taxes. Tom has a series of books that are really beneficial to daycares and taxes. I bought my set through Redleaf.

[TomCopeland]

Expenses for your home

There are three types of rooms you have in your home:
1) Rooms not used regularly for your business - you can't count any of this square feet
2) Rooms used regularly for your business (2-3 times per week).
3) Rooms used exclusively for your business (never any personal use)

It sounds like your tax preparer doesn't understand this. If so, amend your tax return.

If you send me the square footage of your rooms, according to these three categories, (and the hours you worked) I can tell you what your time-space % should be.