New Home Office Deduction Rules

Home Office Small Office

Did you know that there’s a new home office deduction option on your 2011 taxes?

The new home office deduction option offers a new, simpler way for calculating the home office tax deduction, allowing small business owners and employees who work from home and who maintain a qualifying home office to deduct up to $1,500 per year. The new option allows qualified taxpayers to deduct annually $5 per square foot of home office space on up to 300 square feet, for as much as $1,500 in deductions. To take advantage of the new option, taxpayers will complete a much simpler version of the current 43-line form.

More from a press release below.

As millions of small businesses nationwide prepare for the 2012 tax season, Kristie Arslan, President and CEO of National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE), the nation’s leading resource for the self-employed and micro-businesses, today applauded the Treasury Department and Small Business Administration for providing a new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) home office deduction option that will benefit millions of small businesses and employees who work from home.

“This is terrific news for the 52% of all small business that work from home, who fight every day to meet their bottom lines while continuing to contribute to the economy,” said Kristie Arslan, President and CEO of NASE. “The previous calculation for the deduction was cumbersome and time consuming for America’s smallest business and year after year hard-earned dollars were left on the table. I applaud the Treasury Department and the Small Business Administration for working together to adopt a common-sense solution to a long-standing problem the self-employed community has faced for years.”

Over the last four years, the NASE has worked on behalf of its members, the small business community and the self-employed to advocate for a simpler home office filing option. The NASE has briefed policymakers and third party stakeholders, including representatives from the Department of Treasury, about the need for this cost-effective option announced today that will benefit millions of America’s smallest businesses. In fact, the NASE worked with Congress in years past to propose legislative that would direct the IRS to simplify the deduction, mostly recently H.R. 1827, The Home Office Deduction Act of 2011, that was introduced in the 112th congress by Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) and Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OH).

“At a time when many self-employed Americans feel as though they are swimming against the current, desperately working to expand and grow their businesses, this is a big win. It will provide our members some relief next tax season by allowing them to take an important deduction they long have qualified for but often forsake due to past complexity,” Arslan concluded.

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