Tax Help...I'm a Slacker

[TomCopeland]

Expenses

OK so I see on page 117 starts you list you're referring too.

1. Food
2. Toys
3. Household Items
4. Cleaning Supplies
5. Activity Expenses


So you have lots listed under Household items would that include ink? If I were to spend $100+ at Sam's for 10 packs of Tissues, Multi-Packs of ink, and boxes of papertowels would I put that under 3. Household Items? I am buying them all at the same place, but originally thought I would just buy tons of tissues and have a separate receipt for each item. LOL. Are these the five categories I should keep in mind when making purchases?

Which category would I put craft supplies under since I buy those most often?

Also, since I don't think I've ever printed anything for myself and all my ink goes to daycare things which I change out monthly or more is it okay to claim it all business for purchasing my printer last year along with all the ink I use? I purchased it for daycare, but it's our only printer. We've printed out monly household bills, but only to save for daycare taxes. We don't print anything for us that I can recall. I don't feel putting any ink under shared expenses would be fair or the printer.

I created the five expense categories you identified to capture all expenses that don't fit in easily to the expense categories printed on Schedule C. You can create your own if you want. If you bought tissues, ink for your printer and paper towels on one receipt, you could call everything Supplies or Household Items or Office Expenses. It doesn't matter which you choose.

You can call craft supplies whatever you want. I would suggest calling them Activity Expenses.

If you use your printer ink 100% for your business, deduct 100% of the cost. If you ever used the printer for personal purposes, don't deduct 100%. Maybe deduct 95% or 80% or your time-space %. If you are going to use something other than 100% or your time-space % then you should make some notes about why you used the number you did. Tracking your actual use for a month or two would be best.

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