Web Worker Daily

If you work from home, you may be wondering if you can deduct costs related to your home office — a part of your mortgage payment or rent, for example. But unfortunately the U.S. tax law in this area doesn’t recognize the work-life blend that most home workers practice. If you mix business and personal activities in your home office, you can’t take the deduction.

The Wall Street Journal reports that most people eligible for this potentially lucrative deduction probably don’t take it:

“It is questionable whether most taxpayers who are eligible to take the deduction actually do so,” IRS National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson said in a report to Congress last week. She urged lawmakers to offer taxpayers a simpler, optional method of calculating the home-office deduction. [subscription required]

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Joshua Porter runs a design and consulting company that focuses on designing social web applications. He left full-time employment this summer to found Bokardo Design and now works out of his home office. Josh blogs at Bokardo.

Describe your job/career

In August of this year I founded a design and consulting company called Bokardo Design. I focus exclusively on designing social web applications doing interface design, evaluation, and strategic consulting. The types of problems I help clients with are things like:

1) “we launched our web app and nobody is using it” 2) “we see the promise of social features, but don’t know where to start”. 3) “we have a great feature set but are having trouble generating interest and motivation”

So, basically, I’m a social psychologist in designer clothing. :)

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