I've been self employed and have owned an LLC for about a decade. I track all my expenses and input them into Turbotax but it always suggest that I use the standard deduction every year.
I don't make a lot of money (around $40-45k annually) but have a fair amount of expenses due to my line of work (music, design, and web services).
For example, I had crazy expenses during the start of the pandemic and had to purchase a lot more electronic equipment to pivot online. I thought for sure having over $15k in expenses would have put me in to get a deduction but it still suggested the standard deduction. I did get a couple grants to help w/ these purchase so it looks like I made more (not quite $50k) but still surprised I was advised to use the standard deduction.
My questions:
- What threshold of expenses and income for my levels do I need to hit before it tips to using itemized expenses?
- If it don't hit that level to itemize, is there even a reason to take the time adding my expenses into TurboTax if I will only be using the standardize deduction?
- If I don't itemize, do I still need to use the small business version of TurboTax? I don't have payroll or anything fancy like that so can I downgrade to one of the more basic versions of TurboTax?
Thank you!
