Home office real estate tax and mortgage interest....on form 8829

[Nargoon]

I have a small office (in my home).I am doing the standard deduction and not itemizing on schedule A. In  filling out the home office deduction worksheet 8829, TT asks for my mortgage interest and real estate tax's on one page and the page which is for the home office only it auto filled the mortgage interest and it again asks for the real estate tax's for the whole home.  Is this right? I don't want to double dip.

[DavidS127]

Yes, you enter the property taxes for the entire home where TurboTax asks.  The software will then allocate the property taxes to the home office based on square footage.

[PaulK]

Why isn't the mortgage interest carrying down when input on form 8829? I see the balance is going to Schedule A but not factoring in on 8829.

[ThomasM125]

You should see the mortgage interest listed on form 8829 in Part II on column (b). It will be multiplied by the business percentage in box 7 and the deductible amount will show up on line 13.  If you don't see it there, I would review your home office entries to make sure it was entered properly. 

[Jeni1]

For me, Form 8829 shows the full amount of property tax as a direct expense, and deducts the full amount from income (lines 12-14).  Then the percent of property tax attributed to my home office is deducted on line 24.  

I'm taking the standard deduction because my state income tax and property tax far exceeds the $10,000 limit (I'm in California).  I'm not sure if this makes a difference.

[MaryK4]

No, the home office amount is based on percentage of square footage so taking the standard deduction will not affect the amount.

@Jeni1

[Jeni1]

Ok, but what I'm seeing is a "double dipping".  Net income is reduced by both the full amount of my property taxes and the percentage allocated to the home office.  For example my property taxes are roughly $6,000.  Net income is reduced first by $6,000, and then by $300 (5% of my house is office space).    I don't know why the program would do this.  This is my first year of business, so I don't have experience with this form.  I guess I'll just do it manually to make sure it's correct.