topic Finished basement tax deduction in Get your taxes done using TurboTax

Finished basement tax deduction

rishavkumar — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 19:52:44 GMT

I am a software engineer working from home all 5 days of the week.

I finished my basement last year and in one portion of the finished basement, I have setup my desk, laptop and monitor. Do I qualify for any tax deduction?

Prior to finishing the basement, I had setup the same desk, laptop and monitor in the same area; the only difference being it was unfinished.

Re: Finished basement tax deduction

xmasbaby0 — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 19:56:40 GMT

Are you a W-2 employee?

W-2 employees cannot deduct job-related expenses on a federal return. Job-related expenses were eliminated as a federal deduction for W-2 employees by the tax laws that changed for 2018 and beyond. Your state tax laws might be different in AL, AR, CA, HI, MN, NY or PA.

If you live in a state that lets you deduct job-related expenses, the information will flow from your federal return to the state return, so enter it in Federal>Deductions and Credits>Employment Expenses>Job-Related Expenses

Re: Finished basement tax deduction

ThomasM125 — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 19:59:23 GMT

If you use the space exclusively for the business and you are self-employed then you can mostly likely take a home office deduction for it. It would have to be the principle place of your business. You can see this Intuit article for more on this.