More U.S. taxpayers than ever are earning income that permits the deduction of business expenses, and a large share of that income is produced at home. To qualify for a home-office deduction, however, specific and often misunderstood rules must be met. Internal Revenue Code §280A begins from a posture of disallowance; no deduction is generally permitted for the business use of a residence, and everything preparers think of as "the home-office deduction" is in fact a narrow exception carved out of that rule.

This course walks the preparer through the qualification tests, the two narrow exceptions to the exclusive-use requirement, the three categories of expense that support a deduction, the mechanics of both the regular and simplified computation methods, the special time-space rules applicable to daycare providers, the forms on which the deduction is reported, and the recordkeeping required to substantiate it if the return is ever examined. Throughout, the emphasis is practical: the rules are stated alongside the intake questions a preparer should be asking, the answers that should raise a follow-up, and the situations where the correct professional response is to decline the position.