I don't think you quite understand how it works. I have been watching some videos from tax professionals on how to properly convert personal use items to business use items. So there could be something there. You have to keep a spreadsheet of how much you paid for the item of your own money. How much the fair market value was when you started using it in your other business. Then you have to choose the lower of the two as the value. Then you have to see how many years the IRS makes you depreciate the value of the item. Then you have to do the math to figure out how much is depreciating each year. The example was a laptop and desk you owned as a personal item. You begin using them in your business. The IRS says the laptop depreciates at 5 years and the desk at 7 years. So you do the math. Then you can deduct year one value on year one, year 2 on year 2, etc. But I do not know how it applies since we received the item for free. I think we would just put $0 in how much we paid since the ETV is income and not what we paid. Then we could maybe put the ETV as what it is worth. But then you have to choose the lower amount so the $0 would mean we cannot depreciate it. But if we could put the ETV as what we paid, since we received it as income and then it would be like we then bought it since we have the item and no actual money. I personally think receiving $100 Vine item is the same as receiving $100 cash and buying that item. You just can't deduct it on taxes like that. But if you thought of it that way and put the ETV as what you paid because that is the value of the item when you got it for personal use. Then you do the spreadsheet to convert to business use. Then depreciate it properly. That might be a legitimate way to deduct it as a business expense. I am NOT a tax professional though but I feel this is worth asking a tax professional if this would be a legal way to do it.
