Thanks for the quick reply!
Where in the Deductions & Credits section do I adjust the total to reflect the mortgage interest associated with the home office (your note regarding making sure Schedule A reflects mortgage interest less that deducted in the Schedule C)? The only input fields in Deductions & Credits ask for the actual data from the Forms 1098. Am I actually modifying the data in the 1098 Box 1 input fields to reflect an amount not shown on the actual 1098's?
Apportioning expenses such as utilities, insurance, etc. based on the percentage of time each Schedule C uses the office makes sense, thanks. Do I apply those percentages to EVERY editable number on the "Tell us about your home expenses" screen? Excess Mortgage Interest, Property Taxes, etc.? Or is TurboTax calculating some of this in the background? If not, it would be an awesome improvement if TurboTax could simply ask what percentage of home office expenses (for the same office) apply to each Schedule C, and then calculate everything based on the data entered for the whole house (taxes, interest, insurance, etc.)...
Other follow-ups:
- When TurboTax asks for expenses associated with the whole house in the home office Schedule C section, my assumption is that it's taking that data and doing the prorating for the square footage of the home office vs. the whole house, yes? Otherwise why would there be a separate screen asking for such expenses associated with only the home office? How would there be a separate real estate tax bill associated with a specific room in a house?
- Regarding the mortgage interest deduction amount(s), here are my approximate numbers: total mortgage interest paid was $11,000. Non-deductible amount of that on a HELOC was $4,000. So deductible amount for the entire house should be $7,000 right? This appears to be captured correctly in the Deductions & Credits section. However, in the home office expense sections of the Schedule C businesses, the total mortgage interest is shown as roughly $2,500 at the top of the column as an un-editable number. That's well below the amount for the whole house, and at the same time well above the portion of the $7,000 that should apply to the home office (based on square footage percentage). Why is this?
- On the same Schedule C screen (the one where I enter expenses for the whole house), it states, "If you paid real estate taxes on the entire home, enter this amount here and later go to the Deductions & Credits area and review the property tax information." Review it for what?
- And am I entering the total property taxes paid in this box for both Schedule C businesses? Or do I prorate the total property taxes paid on the whole house based on the percentage use of the home office for each Schedule C?
- On the same screen ("Tell us about your home expenses"): there's a check box with the description, "Real estate taxes entered here were already entered on another home office." Given my situation (2 businesses sharing 1 home office), should this box be checked in both Schedule C's? One and not the other? Or neither (since there is only one office)?
Thanks for reading through all of these questions!
