Yes you will still want to use TurboTax Home and Business as long as you still own your self-employment business (even if you had no income for the current tax return).
Depending how much you spent on these items will determine if you report them under expenses or as assets.
To enter your equipment purchases in TurboTax Online or Desktop, please follow these steps:
- Once you are in your tax
return, click on the “Business"” tab
- Next click on “I’ll choose
what I work on” (jump to full list)
- Scroll down the screen until
to come to the section “Business Income and Expense”
- Choose “Profit or
Loss from Business ”
and select start/revisit/update.
- If your business is already
listed, choose to "edit"
- You will eventually get to a
screen titled "Your () Business"
If each piece of equipment is less than $200 per
item, you can include the tools under Business Expenses > Other
Common Business Expenses (start/update) > Other Miscellaneous Expenses
(start/update)
You can enter your
tool expenses (as one total amount) here. You may want to title these expenses as "Small tools" (see
screenshot)
If however a piece
of equipment is substantially more than $200,
you will need to enter each item (the rest can still be expensed as
above) that is over this amount individually as an asset (you will still be able to claim the full expense as
an IRC section 179 deduction if she has enough income to offset this deduction.
Otherwise you will be able to take a depreciation expenses over the life of the
items).
Enter each asset
under the Your () Business Summary page under assets. Follow the TurboTax
guidance to help you enter this information.
Please refer to this
IRS link for more information about business expenses:
https://www.irs.gov/publications/p334/ch08.html#en_US_2014_publink1000313521
