Home office, employee. Is there a quick easy way to start this deduction without taking depreciation of my home, etc?

[American]

Turbo Home & Office.

I believe there is a quick and easy way to add a home office expense without going through all the depreciation of my home and adding all the interest to my mortgage expense and maintenance of my house expense.  I would just like to have a minimum of added deductions.

[DS30]

Yes. you can use the simplify method for home depreciation (see screenshot)

As an employee, the Home Office Deduction is a job-related expense subject to the 2% AGI limitation and is only available as a deduction if you itemize on your tax return.

To enter your Home Office expenses as a job-related expense in TurboTax Online or Desktop, please follow these steps:

1. Once you are in your tax return, click on the “Federal Taxes” tab
2. Next click on “Deductions & Credits”
3. Next click on "jump to full list" or “I’ll choose what I work on”
4. Scroll down the screen until to come to the section “Employment Expenses”
5. Choose "show more", then Job-related expenses and follow the onscreen instructions          

• Say "yes" to question "Did you have any of these expenses in 2015 for your W-2 income?" under the screen titled "Employment Expenses Related to a W-2".
• A few screens in, you will get to a screen titled "Home Office Expense", you can put for home office information here

[beccaineugene]

I am having trouble understanding if I can use the employee home office deduction.  I read that it's been eliminated as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  (for W-2 employees)  But then I also find that if it was for "employer convenience" then it may be allowed.  Turbotax allowed me to enter my data and gave me a deduction.  (using the simplified version)   Do you know whether it's still an active deduction for W2 employees. I searched IRS rules and it was not helpful.  Thanks.

[xmasbaby0]

@beccaineugene No-----there is not a provision for a W-2 employee to get a deduction for a home office for the "employer convenience."   Not sure where you heard something like that.  (I suspect social media).  

Sorry---W-2 employees cannot deduct expenses for working from home.  Job-related expenses were eliminated as a deduction for W-2 employees by the tax laws that changed for 2018 and beyond.  Your state tax laws might be different.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/4482873-which-federal-tax-deductions-have-been-suspended-by-tax-re...

[beccaineugene]

Thanks for that.  It wasn’t social media actually, (I don’t turn to social media for tax advice- not sure why you said that) but this article, among others. However, now I notice I can’t find a date for the article. 
It’s weird that TurboTax let me claim it.  I was answering prompts about employee expenses, and then it walked me through all the info, letting me choose the simplified method ultimately, and gave me a deduction of about $550.  It seems that might be a program flaw if that doesn’t exist anymore. Anyway, thanks for the help. 

ugh. And now that link is broken/error 400.  (Shrugging shoulders.) Never mind.  

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-you-deduct-your-home-office-[product key removed]yee.htm...

[xmasbaby0]

There are a few states that allow job-related expenses for W-2 employees, and that is why the software allows you to enter them so that they will flow from your federal return to your state form.  But you will not get a federal deduction for job-related expenses for a W-2 job on a federal tax return.

[beccaineugene]

Okay, thanks. It didn’t appear that the supposed $550 was an Oregon deduction, but I’ll chalk it up to some kind of error one way or the other.  I understand it’s my responsibility to know or research tax law well enough to do my own taxes, but it didn’t inspire much confidence in TurboTax last night when I was working on it to have it tell me i qualified for a large deduction that i apparently don’t. 
thanks for the help. 

[xmasbaby0]

Another thing that led to the confusion----this thread is old.   When you see a 2019 date in some of these threads ---they can really be much older---and this one is old.   When the user forum changed from Answer Xchange to Real Money Talk in mid-2019, a bunch of old threads migrated over with 2019 dates.   But the information in that reply above has to be much older---from before the tax law changes that occurred for 2018 and beyond.   

[beccaineugene]

Okay, thanks for pointing that out.