Employees may only take the home office deduction if they maintain the home office for the convenience of their employer.
Home office deduction as an employee. Those who qualified under the old law wrote off their home office. A condition of employment. To qualify for the home office deduction the employee must regularly and exclusively use a portion of his or her home for work it need not be a whole room. Tax reform eliminated the employee home office deduction by taking away the ability to claim miscellaneous itemized deductions.
In this publication you will find. For tax years 2018 through 2025 tax reform has eliminated the itemized deduction for employee business expenses. Necessary for the employer s business to properly function or. The amount you can deduct for work space in the home expenses is limited to the amount of employment income remaining after all other employment expenses have been deducted.
Eligibility to deduct home office expenses differs depending on whether the taxpayer is a self employed person or an employee. Before 2018 employees could take the home office deduction if they worked at home for the employer s convenience. For a full explanation of tax deductions for your home office refer to publication 587 business use of your home. If your office space is in a rented house or apartment where you live deduct the percentage of the rent and any maintenance costs you paid that relate to the work space.
The short version is that if you are a w 2 employee you are no longer able to benefit from the home office deduction even if you work from home full time. An employee s home office is deemed to be for an employer s convenience only if it is. Home office tax deduction for self employed workers before we dive further into this topic unfortunately if you are an employee you are not eligible for this deduction. Unfortunately when congress enacted the tax cuts and jobs act in 2018 it eliminated all deductions for employee job expenses from 2018 through 2025.
Requirements for qualifying to deduct expenses including special rules for storing inventory or product samples. The home office deduction is calculated based on the percentage of the work area to the total area of the home. The tax law permits employers to reimburse employees for legitimate job related expenses including home offices that meet the requirements for the home office deduction.