I mentioned the simplified home office deduction for 2014 in a recent “Freelance taxes roundup.” On the surface, it seemed like a great idea and appeared to save a lot of time and record keeping. I’m a freelancer, not an accountant, after all. I was happy, if not necessarily doing the Dougie.
Well, it turns out that simplified doesn’t equal maximized, even for an English major whose last math class was college freshman calculus. When I crunched the numbers over the weekend, it turns out that the easy equation—$5 per square foot at a maximum of 300 square feet, i.e., capped at $1500—wasn’t as beneficial to my tax deduction as it was to do it the old fashioned way. [Read more…]