topic de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses in Business & farm

de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

bruce93 — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 10:48:25 GMT

Preparing 1040 for TY2023, joint return, each of us has a separate Schedule C business. Last year (TY2022), each of us made separate "de minimis" elections for our separate Sch C businesses (using TaxAct), and the software generated separate election statements. With TurboTax Home&Business (desktop download, Win 10, latest update 10/1/24) for TY2023, it only generates one "joint" election statement (with just my SSN), and includes no business names or Sch C reference(s) on the statement. Is there a way to generate separate ones (that also indicate the business it's for, with the appropriate owner's SSN)? Have the regulations changed regarding this?

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

Anonymous_ — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 03:55:59 GMT

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

bruce93 — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 17:42:34 GMT

Thanks for your quick reply. My understanding of the de minimis statement rules is that it must list the name, address, and Tax ID of the business. Thus, it would seem that separate statements would be required. Is that correct?

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

Anonymous_ — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 03:55:46 GMT

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

bruce93 — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 18:00:48 GMT

For historical reference, I used TurboTax in 2021, still MFJ, but just one Sch C business (for my wife ("Spouse")). In that case, the software generated a de minimis election statement with her name and dba, and her SSN. Not exactly apples-to-apples, but this is different program behavior (at least for using her individual name and dba).

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

bruce93 — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 18:09:14 GMT

Thanks for your clarification. I had to really hunt to find the de minimis statement questions (never found a tick box in forms mode, had to go through the depreciation Q&A and answer "Yes" to having depreciable property to get into the right series of questions). If you're correct about the program having that limitation, do you know if there's a way to add a user-written statement (actually 2 in my case) to a return (for e-filing)?

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

Anonymous_ — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 03:55:31 GMT

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

bruce93 — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 20:30:08 GMT

Thanks for your response. I found that I could edit the name field in that form (I found it under Forms using a search for "de minimis"), so I did that for my name and dba, since my SSN was on that pre-generated form. You were right that the program would not let me add a second copy of that form, so I saw that I could add a blank form, and did that, typing the whole thing in for my wife's business. That second one says "Blank Form" at the top which is rather stupid IMO, and has an unused Total line at the bottom, but if it will let me e-file, I'll give it a go.

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

Anonymous_ — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 03:55:18 GMT

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

bruce93 — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 04:24:48 GMT

Well, I thought I had this figured out, but then a TurboTax rep (for program help) told me that the standard/default TurboTax-generated de minimis safe harbor election covers the entire tax return (i.e. covers both of our Schedule C businesses). The name field on the election form contains my name '&' spouse name, and the Tax ID field has [only] my SSN (the first one on the 1040--a typical IRS usage).

I've never heard of a "joint" election for this anywhere else, and can't find any similar rule in any of the IRS pubs/links. Can anyone provide a reference to an IRS document/Regs or some official guidance that shows how to properly make the election(s) for 2 separate Schedule C businesses on a joint 1040?

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

Anonymous_ — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 03:55:06 GMT

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

bruce93 — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 15:25:17 GMT

Thanks for your explanation. You're probably right, but I'd welcome the second opinion you suggested as well.

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

AmeliesUncle — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 16:30:24 GMT

In my opinion, TurboTax does it wrong. While it does not need the business name or EIN, it should have both of your Social Security Numbers on it.

But I agree with Tagteam that the IRS probably won't really care as long as both names are on it.

If only one person wants to make the election, I edit it so it only has one name on it and their SSN number.

To explain why I think TurboTax is wrong: The Regulation says that for a consolidated corporate return (one "parent" tax return that covers several "member" corporations), the election needs to state the name AND identification number of each "member" corporation. To me, that means you can't only use the 'first' Social Security Number on your Joint tax return - It should have the Social Security Number of all 'members' of the tax return.

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

Anonymous_ — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 03:53:24 GMT

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

bruce93 — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 17:00:00 GMT

Thanks to both of you, TagTeam and AmeliesUncle! I marked both you for the best answer. I appreciate your help on this!

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

Anonymous_ — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 03:54:15 GMT

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

bruce93 — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 23:08:23 GMT

Just a follow-up to note a couple TurboTax (Win desktop) behaviors and indicate my final decision after another Program Help session with a very helpful TurboTax rep:

With a shared screen, we started from my return with a modified name version of the TurboTax "de minimis safe harbor election" form (titled "Section 1.263(a)-1(f)..."), which had just my name and dba, and my SSN. We then used the Q&A method to opt for a de minimis election form within my wife's Sch C business depreciation topic, and noted that the existing election form just described was not changed, and a second election form (hopefully with my wife's Sch C info) was not generated at all. We also verified that a second de minimis election form could not be added from Forms Mode.

We then noted that my workaround of adding the "Blank Form" in Forms Mode, then filling it in to replicate my existing TurboTax election form (except for using my wife's name, dba, and her SSN), was indeed included in the "Official Forms for Filing" PDF generated in the Print Center (after setting up to e-file our 1040). She said that its presence there indicated it would be submitted to IRS as part of the e-file. Her confidence in this was high, noting that the "Blank Form" is sometimes needed to attach other statements or supporting details for certain tax situations.

So my final decision was to use the Blank Form to create a separate replica de minimis election form for my wife's Sch C business, and stick with my existing modified TurboTax election form for my Sch C business. This is consistent with the separate election forms I've filed in past years (e.g. TY2022 using TaxAct).

If anyone from TurboTax is reading this, future versions need to be able to generate a separate de minimis election form for each person on a joint return (according to my reading of the tax rules, and precedent).

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

AmeliesUncle — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 23:19:53 GMT

@bruce93 wrote:

We then noted that my workaround of adding the "Blank Form" in Forms Mode, then filling it in to replicate my existing TurboTax election form (except for using my wife's name, dba, and her SSN), was indeed included in the "Official Forms for Filing" PDF generated in the Print Center (after setting up to e-file our 1040). She said that its presence there indicated it would be submitted to IRS as part of the e-file. Her confidence in this was high, noting that the "Blank Form" is sometimes needed to attach other statements or supporting details for certain tax situations.

I have no first-hand knowledge of this, but previous posts that I've seen have indicated that the "blank form" is NOT included with the e-file. But as I said, I don't have any knowledge of how the e-file programming works, just what has been said on other posts on this forum.

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

Anonymous_ — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 03:54:30 GMT

Re: de minimis safe harbor for 2 Schedule C businesses

bruce93 — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 15:54:28 GMT

You were both right to be skeptical regarding the Blank Form. I happened to click on the program help at the top of the window when my Blank Form was open, and it brought up context sensitive help for that form. It specifically states that Blank Form is NOT included in an e-file, and is only for paper filing. So much for counting on definitive information from the TurboTax reps <sigh>. So I switched to tagteam's suggestion of putting both names with their respective SSNs on the Name line of the de minimis safe harbor election form, and deleted the Blank Form. I don't want to wait for what turned out to be a significant refund this year, so I'll take the probably small risk of not using 2 separate election forms this year.

By the way, TurboTax also limits you to a single instance of the Blank Form. Dumb!

Thanks again for your help and prescient advice.

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