Hybrid employee and consult on the side - do I deduct for home office under both personal and business?

[lreimer74]

Hybrid employee and consult on the side - do I deduct for home office under both personal and business?

TurboTax prompts me to enter information for deductions in both sections 

Assume I only complete in 1 section which would be personal section as this is the primary use of the home office in terms of time ...

Anyone can assist please 

[ThomasM125]

You can't deduct a home office in 2023 for work as an employee on your federal return and for most state returns so you may reconsider entering anything there. Also, the office space you use for your business has to be used exclusively for that purpose, so if you are using it for your salary job you would not be allowed the deduction for your business.

[lreimer74]

Thank you very helpful response 

Follow up question on statement "You can't deduct a home office in 2023 for work as an employee on your federal return and for most state returns so you may reconsider entering anything there" ... why would TurboTax ask under personal (employee, not business) for info on home office deduction from user then? Only for the limited number of states that do allow? In my opinion it would be helpful in the TT SW if this info was shared with the user when they click on the home office deduction under personal ... 

Also, if a user does enter in TT information for home office deductions under both personal and business, does the SW cross reference the 2 to avoid a user error based on the ''exclusive use'' requirement of the tax code?

[AnnetteB6]

Yes, the option to enter home office expenses as part of employee business expenses is there in the event that you live in a state that still allows that deduction.  Also, there are still certain categories of employees that are allowed to take this deduction on their Federal return (Armed Forces reservist, qualified performing artist, fee-basis state or local government official, or an employee with impairment-related work expenses).  

Additionally, the change to disallow this deduction for anyone other than the certain categories of employees was part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in 2017.  This change affects tax returns from 2018 to 2025.

To answer your other question about whether TurboTax will cross-reference the information you enter to be sure that you are not violating the 'exclusive use' requirement, the answer is no.  TurboTax does not have enough information about your situation to be able to cross-reference your entries in that manner.  

For example, one way to overcome using the same office space for a W-2 job and a Schedule C job would be to split the office space in half and claim half the square feet in each home office.  Your entries into TurboTax would look the same for each home office, but the program would not know if you were referring to the same space in your home or to different spaces in your home.  You will have to self-govern those entries based on the help content throughout the TurboTax program.

@lreimer74