If you’re self-employed on your own or with a business partner, you can claim business-use-of-home expenses on your tax return using Form T2125. These expenses must:
- Be incurred to earn business income
- Be current (such as printer paper), or set up for capital cost allowance (CCA) if long-term (such as a desk)
- Not exceed your business income
Your home workspace must be either:
- Your main place of business, or
- Used only to earn income and regularly meet clients
If an expense applies to your entire home, such as utilities, TurboTax will ask what portion of your home was for business use only and then calculate the business percentage. This is done by dividing the area of the workspace by the total area of your home. If your workspace is a dedicated office, the expense amount can instead be divided by the number of rooms in your home.
If your workspace has some personal use—let’s say you work from your dining room table—TurboTax will also ask for the amount of business use and will compare it to total use. This is done by taking the number of hours per day used for the business divided by 24 hours, then multiplying the result by the business part of your total home expenses.
Watch the video above or click the relevant link below to learn how to claim your expenses in TurboTax Online or TurboTax CD/Download. Before starting, fill out your personal information and employment/self-employment income in TurboTax.