Our business operates out of our home & we use designated business cell phones. Do we enter the cell phone costs under business use of home or business utilities?

[KB2221]

As the cell phones are used solely for the business and not a percentage of use like the rest of business use of home expenses, I'm not sure how to record it in that section with the TurboTax software.

[TurboTaxBrenda]

You can enter your cell phone bill under "Office Space Only" if the cell phone is for business use only.

Thank you for choosing TurboTax.

[KB2221]

Thanks for your quick reply. Where would I find the option to enter it under "office space only"? I can't seem to find an option to do that under the "Home Expenses" deduction category. It states "Enter the total amounts for your home in 2023 and we’ll calculate the business portion." I looked through the other expense categories as well and didn't see an option for this. Any direction on where to find this in the program would be very helpful. Thank you. 

[TurboTaxGinette]

You will use the Find icon at the top right and enter self-employment activities, highlight it then click Go. From there you will answer the questions till you get to Next up, claiming your expenses and you will click on Continue and choose the expenses you wish to claim as seen in the image below.

Thank you for choosing TurboTax.

[ecast]

If an expense such as Internet or Mobile phone is entered into the Home Office section, would it not apply the percentage used with the other Home Office expenses, such as Heat and Electricity?  That would be incorrect for most home based businesses.  In my case, thought I have 1/6 of the space, I use the majority of the Internet and Mobile phone for business. There is no way I am allowing it to be reduced to only 1/6th of the expense.

[TurboTaxSusan]

@ecast You can enter the business portion of your Internet & Phone under Miscellaneous/Other so that those amounts won't be prorated based on your home office size.

[pcmoan1]

I've had the exact same observation.  Most of our internet service at home is used for business.  It's not the same as the percentage of the home dedicated to a home office.  I dunno why TurboTax does not make this distinction clear as it's a very simple and common scenario.

[pcmoan1]

Thanks for the confirmation regarding putting phone/internet under miscellaneous office expenses.  As someone else said this is not the same kind of expense as heat or water.  We use the internet mostly for work at home, so noting it as a "home office expense" does not make sense.   TurboTax could eliminate this confusion simply by updating the list of examples they provide under misc expenses to include cell and internet.

[TurboTaxAniqua]

@pcmoan1 You can enter the business portion of your Internet & Phone under Miscellaneous/Other so that those amounts won't be prorated based on your home office size. Thanks for the feedback, we will pass it on to the assigned department.