Is Home Office Furniture Tax Deductible? 3 Ways to Tell If Yours Is

It's a question that every home-based business owner has - "what kind of tax deductions can I take?" If you have gone out and bought a bunch of home office furniture for your new venture, there's a good chance that you can take it all as a tax deduction.

When you deduct home office furniture, you can do it in one of two ways:

• You can deduct the total cost of the furniture all at once
• You can deduct a portion of the cost over 7 years, in a process called "depreciation"

But in order to tell if your home office furniture is tax deductible to begin with, it needs to meet the following guidelines:

1. It must be used for business only

If you bought a new couch for your living room that clients occasionally sit on, chances are it's not tax deductible. In order for your home office furniture to qualify as a tax deduction, you have to define the term "home office" the same way that the IRS does - as a space that is completely devoted to your business. If you use the area (or the furniture) for other things - like as a guest room or as a playroom for the kids - then it's not going to count.

But you don't necessarily have to work from home to qualify for a home office furniture tax deduction. If, for example, you run your company out of a traditional office - but bought a file cabinet to store important business papers at home - you can legally deduct the cost of the file cabinet.

2. It needs to come with good records

If you ever get audited, you will have to shoulder the burden of proof - meaning that you will have to prove to the IRS that you were right to take your home office furniture as a tax deduction. The only way to ever prove your case is to keep records that show how much you paid or records that prove that you really needed the piece of furniture for business purposes. Otherwise, you could very well be out of luck.

3. It needs to make sense

A good way to raise a red flag with the IRS is to do things that don't make sense. When it comes to deducting home office furniture, a common mistake that people make comes from computers. In order to take your computer, computer desk, or computer accessories as tax deductions, you will need to be able to prove that they are solely the property of your business. But if you have a family of 4 and only one computer workstation, you are going to have a hard time proving to the IRS that it's all for business purposes - and that your husband doesn't play games on it, or that your kids don't use it to do their homework.

Bookcases, Not Just For Books Any More

Although this article is about bookcases, I'd like to get this out of the way first and foremost; lots of people still read. It's a fantastic way to spend your time and you can invariably gain the shared wisdom of the great minds before us. Standing on the shoulders of giants springs to mind. Alternatively you can just zone out and read a book purely for the emotional stimulus. As long as it's interesting, it's good to read, that's my rule. But again, that's not the point of the article.

Bookcases were once built to hold, store and display books, nothing more, nothing less. With today's contemporary design and the rapid increase in technology as well as the fusion of fashion and function, bookcases are becoming bolder and more stylish. They achieve now what multiple sets of shelves used to. In fact they are beginning to overtake shelves, TV stands and end tables as a place to 'put something' and are becoming more like murals than storage.

A couple of great examples are the Jigsaw and Pombol bookcases by Portuguese furniture designer Tema Home'. Tema have managed to find the perfect synergy of practicality and aesthetics with their creations. The construction is easily equal to the top Italian designers. Not only are there areas for books, there are sections for your television, other set top boxes and a multitude of decorative ornaments. Of course you can put things wherever you like and there aren't any 'designated' spots, but the display models I've seen do a fantastic job of demonstrating their versatility.

A bookcase is no longer a discreet element that sits in the corner or on a secondary wall somewhere. They can be magnificent structures that establish a real presence in the room. Of course it doesn't have to break from tradition the way I may seem to be suggesting. I think we've all at one point or another had our breath taken away by an incredible collection of text volumes; books containing some of the most valuable information of our time and of the past. Think of the Great Library of Alexandria... or various scenes from Harry Potter. In more humble settings, a grand bookcase filled with encyclopaedias and classical works is really quite something to behold. As decoration or as a display of your learning, capability and achievement, bookcases remain quite relevant even in today's minimalist settings.

As with many of the most reputable European designers of today, these kinds of bookcases are built to be part of a collection. Although it's easily possible to use modern bookcases for just about any living room function (an entertainment centre, decorative shelving, CD and DVD rack, a place to put your coffee mug etc.), designers seem to be keeping the traditional function in mind by creating individual furniture pieces (such as coffee tables and sideboards) to compliment the bookcases whilst being perhaps a little more suited for certain tasks (e.g. a plate of biscuits).