Is Your Spouse Or Side Job Costing You The Home-Office Deduction?
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Maybe you run your business from a home office, and your spouse uses the same room for their own side venture — or you sneak in some W-2 work at that desk between client calls. It feels harmless. It isn’t.
Under a precedent-setting Tax Court ruling, every single use of that home office has to independently qualify for the deduction. One use that doesn’t — even a little W-2 work, now permanently barred from the deduction — can wipe out the entire home-office write-off, not just reduce it.
In Hamacher, the Tax Court denied the taxpayer’s entire home-office deduction because one non-qualifying use tainted the office.