Home office indirect expense on form 8829 when married filing separately

[tfr888]

Experimenting this year with Married Filing Separately; we always filed jointly in years past. I am self-employed, fill out Schedule C, and have been claiming a home office for years.  My wife gets a W2 and doesn't claim a home office for her job.  I'm wondering if that filing separately status has an impact on the amounts that are entered in the Indirect Expense column of Form 8829, specifically the things we pay for together like mortgage, real estate taxes, and home insurance. Would I enter only 50% of the real estate taxes we paid or can I enter 100% of them? If it makes a difference, we are each taking the standard deduction on our separate returns.   

[ThomasM125]

When you file as married-separate, you must be consistent with your spouse in the way you treat deductions. Since you are taking the standard deduction, you are choosing to split your deductions equally, so it would be appropriate to do the same with respect to mortgage interest, property taxes and insurance.

So, you should enter 50% of your home expenses for the home-office deduction. 

[tfr888]

Sorry for the late thank you -- didn't see the notification. If I take the standard deduction and use the complex method of figuring the home office deduction, I'd enter only 50% of property taxes in the indirect column. But if I  use instead the Simplified Method for calculating the home office deduction, TT will know how to do that calculation, taking into account that I'm filing separately. Is that right?

[ThomasM125]

If you use the simplified method, you get a standard deduction of $5 per square foot of your home, but only up to 300 square feet. So, you would only be allowed half of the square footage of the house, but not more than 300sf. So you will probably get a deduction based on 300sf. TurboTax will do that calculation for you.

Otherwise you would enter your actual expenses, which would include 50% of the property taxes, per your question.

[Carl]

Just for clarification for my own knowledge on this.

So you will probably get a deduction based on 300sf.

If filing MFS, wouldn't that deduction (simplified method) be based on half that, or 150sf? Or do they still get the full 300sf since they are the sole owner of the business filing MFS?