Home Office Expenses

[SE_Customer]

I am self-employed, make Cleaning services (pounds of laundries, then ironed & folded them).
During 2022 I used my home for work (make partial laundries, then ironed & folded them).
I rented house from 01/01/2022 to 11/15/2022 and paid rent for this period, and utilities for the 12 months.
11/15/2022 I bought the same house and I have to account depreciation of house for the period 11/16/2022 – 12/31/2022 in TurboTax as part Home Office expenses

Net profit for my Cleaning services more than $ 40 000 , however Turbo Tax sent message, that my Home Office expenses are not eligible for deduction.

“The net profit for your Cleaning services work was zero or less, which means you can't claim any home office deductions. This means your 2022 home office carryover of $5632 will be carried over to 2023. These carryover expenses will continue to carry over each year until your net profit is greater than $0 and you choose the actual method to deduct your home office expenses.”

      1)How to make my Home Office expenses eligible for deduction                                                                                                                                                                                              2) How to introduce depreciation of house for the period 11/16/2022 – 12/31/2022 in TurboTax as part Home Office expenses simultaneously with rent for the period 01/01/2022 to 11/15/2022

[NCperson]

@SE_Customer - do you mean how to take the deduction for the portion of the home that is your office?  You only 'depreciate' when you are renting to others.  When you were not the homeowner early in the year, there is no "depreciation".  and when you owned the home, there isn't 'depreciation' since you are not renting to others (but there could be a deduction for a home office if all the rules are met)

Hate to be sarcastic, but TT said you couldn't deduct the expenses in the current year since your expenses exceeded your revenue.  you can deduct the expenses if revenue was higher 🙂 

[Mike9241]

I'm not sure that you are entitled to any home office deduction.  one rule is that the area has to be used exclusively for business. your laundry was probably used for your own needs disqualifying it for any home office deduction. 

[Critter-3]

Agreed ... home office would not be allowed because you do not use the space exclusively however you could determine a cost per load for the cleaning.  Check out your local laundrymats ... how much would it cost you to use those machines for a wash/dry of a load?   Say the wash would be $3 and the dry $2 then you could deduct $5 per load as an expense + the cost of soap.   Keep excellent records to support this deduction in case of an audit.