lawn tools for home office

[Danny367]

I'm self-employed with all of my clients meeting me in my home office / studio where I teach. the appearance of my home and property is very important to my brand. I include the lawn weed and feed treatments in my expenses and they're provided by a company I hire for that purpose. I, however, do all of my own mowing and trimming. this year, I purchased new tools (eg a riding mower and weed-whacker) for this purpose. given my business is teaching and not landscaping, for example, am I able to expense the new riding mower and weed-whacker? both are required to keep up the appearance of my home office / property which is visited by my clients.

if I'm able to expense these tools where, where and how is that done? it seems like I should be able to because I could expense someone else doing the mowing. I'm able to do it; just needed to buy the tools. thanks.

[AnnetteB6]

Landscaping and related costs would be entered as an expense related to your whole home, not specifically related to the home office.  The same would be true for expensing the cost of the riding mower and week-whacker.  These are whole home expenses and would be prorated by the percent of your home that is the home office.  Enter this cost as a whole-home expense in the home office section.

[Danny367]

Thank you so much for responding and I'm not a tax pro and mean no disrespect but I just read IRS Publication 587 (see page 6) and it states lawn care is an unrelated expense and cannot be deducted. What am I missing? 

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p587.pdf

Thank you.

[DawnC]

Home Office expenses that are only for the parts of your home not used for business are not deductible.  Lawn care is considered an unrelated expense.  

You must divide the expenses of operating your home between personal and business use.  The part of a home operating expense you can use to figure your deduction depends on both of the following:

• Whether the expense is direct, indirect, or unrelated.
• The percentage of your home used for business.

Table 1 describes the types of expenses you may have and the extent to which they are deductible.