home office deduction excess real estate and mortgage interest

[childclan]

I qualify for the Home Office Deduction for my Schedule C business.  I am taking the standard deduction, so not itemizing.  Both the Mortgage Interest and Real Estate Taxes Easy Step questions indicate that if you aren't itemizing deductions that you should enter the full amount of those items as excess.  Oddly, declaring either item as excess causes me to owe more on the tax return so I need to be sure I have to enter them that way.

[AliciaP1]

No, you do not have to enter actual costs for your home office deduction.  You can elect to use the simplified method which calculates at $5 per square foot up to 300 square feet for the tax year 2021.

See Simplified Option for more details on the deduction.

[childclan]

Thank you for the reply.  Can I choose the simplified method even if in all prior years I entered actual expenses?  If I choose to continue with actual expenses, is declaring these expenses as excess the correct way to enter them?

[AliciaP1]

Yes, you may choose to use either method any year regardless of how you previously calculated the deduction on your return.

Yes, if you use actual expenses you should declare them as excess. 

[browncouches]

Hi, I'm working in the home office/Excess Mortgage section.

"If you have a mortgage, but are not itemizing deductions, enter your mortgage interest here."

The personal section we are taking the standard deduction, but the office section I am itemizing. Which one (personal or biz) does the above statement pertain to? 

Thanks!

[DaveF1006]

This is actually in the Business section that this statement pertains to. You are entering expenses for your home office that you use for business. A portion of your mortgage interest that pertains to the home office is a deductible expense that helps  determine your overall home office deduction.

Please read the following IRS link for further information regarding your home office expense.

[cfrphoto]

Why is TurboTax asking for an amount it should already know? It appears that the question relates to non-deductible mortgage interest for taxpayers who itemize deductions. Why would TurboTax not know the answer to itemize or not if the mortgage interest amount would be fully deductible? This appears to be a bug in a sloppily designed and unnecessarily complicated set of questions that could be answered by TurboTax after it is possible to determine whether to itemize deductions or not.

If Step-By-Step and forms contexts could be synchronized, then it would be possible to step out to the form, go look for the answer, return to the form and then back to Step-By-Step. Otherwise, it is necessary to answer the same tedious questions over and over again.,

[Critter-3]

@cfrphoto 

The program is written to be completed in a forward motion only (skipping about is not advised) so you will first complete the OIH in the income section before you go to the deduction section.  When you enter the info in the OIH area that information is carried to the Sch A section and you are instructed to not enter anything a second time.   So it does only require you to enter information once ... if you enter in the deductions first then you will not only need to enter the same info again in the OIH area but need to revisit the deductions section again to remove the earlier entry.