Higher T/S for Utilities

[ggmac]

It's just my daughter and myself here in the house. Daughter is full time college student and works. I feel strongly that my utilities are much higher because of my having the little ones in the house. My heat is up higher during the day, my electric is higher, my garbage I feel is at least 60% of daycare with all the diapers and craft messes. I've asked my tax pro., and I'm not getting a response. Is it ok for me to use 55% for my electric and heat, 60% for garbage ? I will use my regular T/S for the cable and internet. I just don't want any questionable deductions that would cause concern with the IRS.

[TomCopeland]

actual business use percentage

It's just my daughter and myself here in the house. Daughter is full time college student and works. I feel strongly that my utilities are much higher because of my having the little ones in the house. My heat is up higher during the day, my electric is higher, my garbage I feel is at least 60% of daycare with all the diapers and craft messes. I've asked my tax pro., and I'm not getting a response. Is it ok for me to use 55% for my electric and heat, 60% for garbage ? I will use my regular T/S for the cable and internet. I just don't want any questionable deductions that would cause concern with the IRS.

You can claim a higher business use for these items. However, to do so, you'll need to have some proof as to why your percentage is correct. The only want to do this is to track the business and personal use over a month or two. This is realistically impossible for electric and heat. You could measure this with garbage. Or, you could compare heat and electric to years when you weren't in business. But, the temperatures are different from year to year. Therefore, except for garbage (which you can measure) I don't think you can justify a higher percentage than your time-space % because you can't accurately measure it.