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Legit question here. I already filed, but was taking to a coworker today who said I can deduct the cost of setting up a home office. I work for a large employer, but they allow me to work from home. I bought a desk, monitors, and other equipment to set up my work space. Probably spent about $700. Is this deductible?

 

I work from home and itemize everything (electric, internet, heat, etc)

 

Yes it is deductible if you are not offered reimbursement for those expenses. However if your expenses don’t exceed 2% of your income then you cannot use them. You also would need to itemize deductions and not use the standard deduction.

 

Yes you can take a percentage of utilities, internet and cell phone if you use it for work.

 

So as long as I’m self employed I can still deduct mileage for 2018 ty?

 

@ChandlerDOOM

 

Correct.

 

Thanks for that, and thanks for this thread!

 

No problem.

 

Looks like i'll be about the same then, not much change. I noticed my paycheck went up by almost $200 tho.

 

For a lot of taxpayers it’s gonna be about the same as 2017. You pay on a little more income, but at a lower rate. Then if you have a child and get an extra 1000.00 from the child tax credit, it may get you a slightly higher return.

 

Well fuck, hopefully my employer bumps up the mileage rate. 28c per mile currently so its something but always use the difference come tax time.

 

this year it’s 53.5c a mile.

 

Yeah my employer pays the 28c, and I use the difference out of whatever the rate is for the year. But seeing that the MJF went up that it probably wont matter anyways since I typically claim roughly 60k mi/yr and with my 28c that I already get it would only work out to 15k anyways, which was good before I got married and the standard deduction was much lower. My mileage is still pretty much paid for with the 28c so thats good enough for me


You mind if I send you a PM sometime?

 

No I don’t mind.

 

So Union dues are tax deductible? Are there any limitations to that?

 

For 2017 yes they are, it needs to be more than 2% of your Adjusted Gross Income and you need to itemize deductions.

 

Yeah it's closer to 0.2%. Glad I haven't been missing that deduction. I've always done my own taxes with turbo tax but in the back of my head wondered if I should pay someone one year just to see if I'm missing anything.

 

I use tax act, have for about 10 years if not longer. I have always gone through every question the program will ask, and I learned a ton of stuff, but yet always wondered if there was some secret things only professional folks know.

 

union dues are in turbotax, It should be under job expenses