If I have utility costs for the entire home totaling $2,000 for the year and my home office is 20% of my total house, I need to enter the entire $2,000 in the Utility Expenses section, correct? Yes ... enter the entire amount, the program will do the proration ... review the form 8829 when you are done.
When it comes to entering Communication Expenses it's not as straight forward. If we spent $800 for a business cell phone last year and $1,200 for internet connectivity, it appears I should enter these expenses in the Communication Expenses section (according to what the examples say). Regarding the phone, before starting this business my wife and I each had a cell phone with our own phone number, but now one of those cell phone lines is shared between us and the other phone line was converted to our business line. Since the business line use to be a personal line, all of our friends, family, colleagues, and associates called and texted us at this number, so understandably we still receive some personal calls and texts on it. However, the lion's share of it's use is for business. So, would we enter the full $800 in this Communication Expenses section since we have another phone for personal use, or do we need to figure out what percentage is personal use even if it's just 8% or 5^ or 2% and reduce the total by that amount? This is where you need to prorate between business & personal usage. And the internet (for the entire house) should be entered with the other utilities on the 8829 and be just a % based on Square Footage like the power bill.
Regarding the $1,200 for internet, this expense is for the high speed internet that's used by our business and everyone else in the house, Do I enter the total internet expenses for the year in this section or do I calculate the business percent first ($1200 X 20%) and enter that amount here? Again enter it with the electric bill and the program will do the % automatically.
