{"id":95,"date":"2009-01-29T19:02:27","date_gmt":"2009-01-29T19:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sherylschuff.com\/blog\/?p=95"},"modified":"2014-01-06T13:04:55","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T18:04:55","slug":"home-office-deduction-chance-of-audit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sherylschuff.com\/blog\/taxes\/home-office-deduction-chance-of-audit\/","title":{"rendered":"Should You Take a Home Office Deduction?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>New for the 2013 filing year: laws have been changed and there is now (finally) a much simpler way to calculate your deduction, as long as you still meet the requirements. Ask your professional tax preparer for details.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img data-opt-id=617966343  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/mlsfkhvpsenu.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/ig:avif\/http:\/\/www.sherylschuff.com\/images\/general\/j0309200.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"200\" align=\"left\" \/>Another tax filing season has begun and along with it the usual advice from tax experts, financial publications, and pundits of many varieties. I am sooooo tired of hearing and reading the conventional &#8220;wisdom&#8221; offered to home-based business owners advising them to avoid the deduction for business use of their home.<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s culprit was the <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/independentstreet\/2009\/01\/29\/how-small-businesses-can-avoid-a-tax-audit\/\" target=\"_blank\">Independent Street blog<\/a> from the Wall Street Journal digital network.<\/p>\n<p>The usual reason given for this advice is that taking the home office deduction raises a red flag and increases the chance of an audit. To which I say, baloney! There is no evidence that this is true.<\/p>\n<p>Statistics from the 2007 filing season show that for <strong>individual taxpayers<\/strong> (this is the category that includes people with home-based businesses who file Schedule C) audits are up 7 % overall to 1,384,563. That&#8217;s out of 134,421,400 returns filed for a <strong>rate of only 1.03%.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The greatest chances for audit <strong>(9.25%<\/strong>) were taxpayers with incomes over $1,000,000. Returns with incomes over 200,000 were audited at the rate of 2.87% and incomes over 100,000 at 1.77%. So if you want to reduce your chances for an audit, don&#8217;t make a million bucks!<\/p>\n<p>I wholeheartedly believe that you should take all the tax deductions that you qualify for. And that&#8217;s the key. You must understand the regulations and must absolutely have the necessary documentation to prove your deductions.<\/p>\n<p>If you do, there&#8217;s no reason to fear an audit.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New for the 2013 filing year: laws have been changed and there is now (finally) a much simpler way to calculate your deduction, as long as you still meet the requirements. Ask your professional tax preparer for details.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Another tax filing season has begun and along with it the usual advice from tax experts, [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","tve_updated_post":"","tve_custom_css":"","tve_user_custom_css":"","tve_globals":{},"tcb2_ready":0,"tcb_editor_enabled":0,"tve_landing_page":"","_tve_header":"","_tve_footer":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[36,35,118,269],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-taxes","tag-home-office-deduction","tag-home-based-business","tag-irs-audit","tag-taxes","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sherylschuff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sherylschuff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sherylschuff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sherylschuff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sherylschuff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sherylschuff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1749,"href":"https:\/\/sherylschuff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions\/1749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sherylschuff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sherylschuff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sherylschuff.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}