Tom I've been doing daycare for about 15 years and only within the last year heard of your books. I just ordered some but which book do I need to keep track of stuff through out the year? I did receive the book tax companion, I got the 2012 just to get an idea of other deductions ect I can claim. Upon skimming though it I think I may have been calculating some things wrong. I'm confused on the time space percentage.
I have a room that is mainly the daycare room, I guess I can't claim it 100% since occassionally (like 3 x per year) my son or friends of our who have kids will use it to play if we have them over, my son will use the tv out here if he has friends over. All the other rooms in the home, living room, bedroom, are used for napping and other things but the kids aren't in it all day. I'm pretty sure I'm calculating that right (or tax preparer).
However I'm confused on things I purchase that is shared for the home, so how I have done it in the past is, if I buy light bulbs I would just keep the receipt and since daycare and personal use it I just have deducted the whole thing, I have never done the space percentage, I'm not understanding how to do that.
Something else I didn't know was keeping track of like laundry and such. I keep track of the hours I am open plus the time for prep before and the time after closing and other things like preparing stuff on weekends for daycare. But I have never calculated laundry, so I know that I do at least 2 -3 load per week of JUST daycare stuff, is it too late to use that? and if not how do I track that?
Although I don't use my car to transport kids much, can I still claim my vehicle or just mileage? I have only done mileage for trips for supplies ect.

One more thing I'm confused on is how or what category things go in, I have always added yard and home maintenace all together is that incorrect?

I would really like to know what book I would use to write everything down or how i woud keep track through the year, right now I keep my receipts seperated in labeled envelopes and then add them at the end of year.

Thank you sorry this is so long. I'm excited to read the book I just received and the other book I've ordered but haven't received yet is Record Keeping guide.

Reply

My Family Child Care Record Keeping Guide lists over 1,000 allowable business deductions and info on how to keep records throughout the year.

If you use a room regularly for your business (2-3 times per week) you can count the room as a business room. It's possible that you use all the rooms in your home on a regular basis. If so, your space percent would be 100%. Then you need to calculate your time percent - count up the number of hours you use your home for your business. Then multiply your space percent by your time percent to get your time-space %. Use your time-space % for all items that are used by your business and your family. There is a chapter in my Tax Workbook that explains this.

You can count hours spent doing laundry. Add these hours to the hours caring for children.

You can claim mileage for business trips, even when children are not in the car. Trips to the bank, library, grocery store, etc. You can either use the standard mileage rate or the actual expenses method for claiming car expenses.

Putting yard and home maintenance together into one expense category is fine. In the end, it doesn't matter what expense category you label items, since they are all added together on your tax return.

Reply

Thank you, I'll have to see if that's the workbook I got.
When I'm figuring out the time percentage do I include the before and after hours and time spent on weekends doing stuff or just when kids are actually here?
Oh and since I have never done that on my receipts I've always just claimed the whole amount of something is there an easy way to do this now that it's the end of the year or will I need to go through every receipt and figure that out?

Reply

Add together the hours spent caring for children and the hours spent on business activities after children are gone.
Add up all your shared expenses and then multiply them by your time-space %.

Reply

Great thank you very much. If you could bear with me I always document my mileage of when I go to the store, library ect and I've always given our tax consultant the mileage which I do put on our taxes, I still haven't received your other book but I was reading I can also deduct our vehicle? I remember talking to my tax consultant about this years ago and I don't remember exactly what she said but for some reason she said I couldn't claim car maintenance? Maybe she said I could do one or the other, mileage OR vehicle maintenance? Our vehicle is now paid off so I don't know if that makes a difference.
Sorry for all the questions, hoping I receive your other book soon.

Reply

You have two ways to claim car expenses: the standard mileage method or the actual expenses method. If you use the standard mileage method you can deduct $.56 a mile for 2014, plus parking, plus a percentage of your car loan interest and property tax on the the car. That's it.
If you use the actual expenses method you can claim a percentage of all the actual costs, including depreciation on the car.

Reply

One more question on this sorry, I don't have documentation that I went to the library, other than the dates I logged when I went for books and bag packets, what else do I need to prove I went to the library?

Reply

If at the time you wrote down on a calendar or elsewhere that you went to the library, then you don't need anything else. That is an adequate record.

Reply

Aahh feew I did that, great thank you!

Reply