You're allowed to claim business expenses without income, as long as you're working with the ultimate intent of making a profit.
You might enter your expenses as "startup costs," though that will be limited to $5,000 with any remainder to be amortized over a period of years. Please see Business Startup and Organizational Costs in the IRS' Publication 535 (2022), Business Expenses for more information.
To enter your self-employment expenses in TurboTax Online:
- If you don’t see 2022 TAXES in the left pane, select the dropdown to the right of Income & Expenses on the Hi, let’s keep working on your taxes! page and then select Let’s get started, Pick up where you left off, or Review/Edit.
- Otherwise, in the left pane, select Wages & Income
- Scroll down and select the Edit/Add dropdown to the right of Self-employment income and expenses
- Select Edit to the right of your self-employment item
- On the Here's your [business] info page, scroll down and select Add expenses for this work
- From here, you can input your expenses
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