How Much Time Working Is Considered Acceptable To IRS

[legomom922]

So I am at the point of getting caught up in entering my time worked when kids were not here, and I was just wondering what the "acceptable" time would be to the IRS? It looks like I worked appx 1 1/2 hr per day between working before opening & closing and time spent cleaning & book work on the weekends looks like appx 3 hrs.

How much time do the rest of you average? Just wondered if my time is less or more than most.

[TomCopeland]

Time

Years ago I was part of a national survey that asked, among other things, how much time a family child care provider worked on business activities in her home after the day care children were gone. The average time was 13.9 hours per week. This represents 8% of the year!

These activities can include: cleaning, record keeping, activity preparation,meal preparation, parent interviews, parent phone calls, time on the Internet, planning menus and preparing shopping lists, conducting work for your local family child care association, working towards your CDA, etc.

Tracking these hours is probably the single most important thing you can do to reduce your taxes. Try to keep careful records of these hours for at least two months each year and use the average from these two months for the rest of the year.

For a detailed article on this: [URL="http://www.tomcopelandblog.com/2011/01/how-to-calculate-your-time-percent.html"]



Join me for my February 28th webinar "How to Reduce Your Taxes for 2010 and 2011" sponsored by daycare.com. For more info: https://www.daycare.com/news/taxes/t...d-webinar.html

[legomom922]

So about 13 hrs a wk would be considered acceptable then?

Thanks Tom!

[TomCopeland]

Time

The question is not what is acceptable to the IRS. The question is whether or not you have records to support what you are claiming on your tax return. Don't claim 13 hours without back up records. I've seen providers being audited who didn't claim any hours after children were gone and they only claimed a 33% time-space percentage.

[legomom922]

Well the only thing I have to go by is what I used to input to MMK. I never wrote it down because I thought inputting it to MMk was all I needed. I had my "usual" routine, so now I have just been putting in the usual amount of time since I am playing catch up.

Are we supposed to be writing it down too??

[TomCopeland]

Recording Time

Putting your hours in MM is fine. If you do this you don't also need to write it down.

[legomom922]

Putting your hours in MM is fine. If you do this you don't also need to write it down.

Oh good!

Thanks Tom