I've been happily (and legitimately ) writing off a portion of my living space over the years for my music composition business, as a renter. i'm starting to look into possibly buying a place of my own. i live in NYC, so it's nearly all condos and co-ops, and i was wondering if i can take the business portion of the monthly condo fees as a business use of home expense? These fees go towards utilities, a partial business espense but are also often used to pay property taxes, which would be an itemized deduction if paid directly. I've not been able to find any info at all in the IRS docs about this.
On a related note, some websites seem to be implying that you can deduct the business portion of your mortgage payments. I always knew that mortgage interest was deductible (itemised) but not the principle. is this correct?
You must meet the IRS guidelines for operating a home office. Calculate the square footage of your office as a percentage of the square footage of your whole home to calculate how much you can deduct from rent, mortgage utilities and other expenses. It's easiest to calculate this if you have a specific room set aside for business purposes. Then it's a simple matter to take the area of your work space and divide it by the total area of your house.
