Claiming Time BEFORE Opening?

[earlystart]

Someone was asking on another daycare forum if on their taxes they can claim the time they are spending on starting up their daycare business (advertising, researching, writing contracts, etc). I was under the impression that you can't until you are open for business. I did tell her that she can claim the start up costs. Someone else told her she can claim that time. Does anyone know for sure what the answer is?

[TomCopeland]

Time

Someone was asking on another daycare forum if on their taxes they can claim the time they are spending on starting up their daycare business (advertising, researching, writing contracts, etc). I was under the impression that you can't until you are open for business. I did tell her that she can claim the start up costs. Someone else told her she can claim that time. Does anyone know for sure what the answer is?

Yes, you can count time spent on business activities in your home before you start caring for children. I won this issue in an IRS audit. You must then divide the number of hours you are working from the day you start counting these hours.