All Forum Posts by: Tim Porsche

@Meagan Barkley thanks for your response, excellent advice! It sounds like I would qualify for the deduction from what you are saying, but I'm still debating if I should take it or not. At $5\square foot on a 150 foot room, I'm looking at about a $750 deduction. Not sure if it is worth the audit risk or not to take it. 

Hi all, I'm thinking about trying to take the home office deduction next year for tax returns, but am not sure if I would qualify. Can anyone tell me, is there a minimum amount of hours you need to use a room for business activities before you are allowed to take the deduction? If I spend on average 5 hours per week in the room doing business related tasks, and use the room exclusively for that and nothing else, would I qualify for the deduction? I would be using this room for doing tasks on the computer related to running a small online business I have and managing rentals. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I really don't feel like getting audited :D... Thanks

@Tim W. Exactly, I could understand if it was a little bit higher, $10-20 or so, but a $70 price difference?? I was like you've got to be kidding me. I'll send them a nice email and see if I can persuade them to only charge for one unit since I can say this is my primary residence, but I'm not expecting anything. Worth a shot though I guess, what do I have to lose right?

I don't suppose it would do any good to call them, and in a calm and charming manner (lol) ask to be billed at $49 for both units since we actually have less trash than our single unit neighbors? And also since I am owner occupying, if that makes any difference, probably not...

 Constitutionally the government shouldn't be allowed to force you to buy anything though I thought? That's what the big shabang was with the Obamacare individual mandate that went to the Supreme court...deciding if the government could mandate everyone buy something or not. Eventually I guess they labeled it as a tax though from what I understand. 

When I bought the duplex it was fully rented out and I was told the tenants pay everything except for heat. Back in February the downstairs tenant moved out and I am going to be moving in next week. The upstairs tenant recently told me that she never paid trash though, just water and sewer which confused me...

Anyway, I transferred the trash\water\sewer into my name now and per the lease the tenant is responsible for 50% of all of those bills, so at the end of the day I should only be paying trash for my unit. Like I said though, I'm confused about what the tenant said about never paying trash :/

Thanks for the reply Kyle. I wasn't sure if this was normal or not but that's good to know going forward. It just kind of seems like a rip off to me, I mean two individuals in two one bedroom apartments aren't going to be putting out more trash than the family next door with two adults and three kids, yet we get charged double the amount ($49 per unit)? Ultimately I guess it's my mistake and I should have done more research beforehand though. I just wish there was a way to get the bill down.

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Hey all, sorry if this I a dumb question, but can a township force of to buy their trash pickup service instead of buying it elsewhere? I have a situation where a private company quoted me $29 per month for a duplex, and the township is charging all but $100! Do I have any recourse if they say I need to use their service?