I recently started working from home as an independent contractor. I know that entitles me to a tax deduction for my "home office" space, but I'm not sure it's worth the bother of figuring the depreciation when we'll have to subtract it out anyway when we sell the house. (And yes, I know it has to be dedicated work space, etc., to claim a deduction).
We do plan to keep the house long-term, and have already used up about 200K of our exemption, even with the housing crash. Plus we rented it for a few years, which was some additional depreciation.
I took the rental depreciation because from what I could tell, the IRS assumes you took it when you sell, whether you did or not. Do they do that with the home office too?
Our tax bracket now is pretty low (15%), although that may change depending on how much work I get. I'm thinking it might just be to our advantage to preserve the home sale deduction for later, when rates might be higher.
Any thoughts on this?
We do plan to keep the house long-term, and have already used up about 200K of our exemption, even with the housing crash. Plus we rented it for a few years, which was some additional depreciation.
I took the rental depreciation because from what I could tell, the IRS assumes you took it when you sell, whether you did or not. Do they do that with the home office too?
Our tax bracket now is pretty low (15%), although that may change depending on how much work I get. I'm thinking it might just be to our advantage to preserve the home sale deduction for later, when rates might be higher.
Any thoughts on this?