Thanks John — So, I actually understand the overall concept here already. I understand that even though my mortgage interest is limited for Schedule A (when itemizing deductions), it is NOT limited for the home office deduction.
What I need to know, though, is how the TurboTax product is wanting me to enter this in order for it to properly translate it into the filed tax form. Using the example you pasted from the IRS page, let's say my excess mortgage interest is $3,000. But TurboTax is already listing the full interest amount (not subtracting out the excess mortgage interest) in the "$[interest paid per 1098]" part of this statement:
"If you have excess mortgage interest and it's included in the $[interest paid per 1098] (entire home) mortgage interest reported for this home office, enter 0."
So, using the IRS example and the fact that the full mortgage interest is listed by TurboTax: Do I put $0 there? Or do I put $3,000?
Another way to phrase this: Does whatever number I put in TurboTax on this page get directly put into in "column (b) of line 14" (meaning I should put $3,000)? Or does TurboTax do a calculation against some other information I inserted, and I should put $0 here and TurboTax will do the calculation that results in it putting a result of $3,000 in column (b) of line 14?
