What tax category for partial home office expenses?

Question

I have a home office that is 10% of my home. On my tax form I have a place to put expenses that are 100% business and another place to put home expenses such as repairs and cleaning where 10% counts as a business expense.  What Quicken tax category should I use for these partial expense?  I only see Office Expense in the list.

Frankx · Answer

Hi @GHerbert,

The Quicken for Windows application doesn't have an "automatic" feature that would make this type of entry for you.  So I suggest that you perform the calculation offline and then setup a standard recurring entry by using a monthly "Bill and Income Reminder" with a Split that will place 10% of the monthly amount is a tax category for "Home Office - Repairs & Cleaning" and the other 90% to a general "Repairs & Cleaning" category.

For the category that you'll setup titled "Home Office - repairs & Cleaning" - you should make sure that you set up a "tax category" for it.  To do that:

1) Go to "Tools" > "Category List" > "Business Expenses";
2) Locate the category and right-click on it and then select "Edit";
3) In the pop-up window, select the "Tax Reporting" tab.  It will look like this:

4) You should select the appropriate category, in the "Schedule C" section, from the drop-down menu;
5) Click on "Save".

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx