GretchenG
Intuit Alumni

Business & farm

I hope this helps: Start-Up Expenses are reported in aggregate - one amount equal to the total of all expenses incurred. For active business activities, these costs are entered either under Assets/Depreciation or under Business Expensesdepending...

Per IRS Pub 535 Business Start-Up and Organizational Costs: "Business start-up and organizational costs are generally capital expenditures. However, you can elect to deduct up to $5,000 of business start-up and $5,000 of organizational costs paid or incurred after October 22, 2004. The $5,000 deduction is reduced by the amount your total start-up or organizational costs exceed $50,000. Any remaining costs must be amortized."

In TurboTax, as long as your start-up expenses are less than $5000, you can add them as Business Expenses

In TurboTax, if you have more than $5000 in start-up costs, the remainder is entered under Business Assets as Intangible Asset, for amortization. Per the IRS, the recovery period would be 180 months or 15 years. 

Please see this IRS link for more information: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p535/ch08.html#en_US_2016_publink1000208939