T/S % New Provider

[Melissalyn]

Hello!

I am a Child Development Home Provider through the Navy. I accepted my first child on October 19th, 2015, but was working to open since around May of that year.

I'm going through all of my receipts and bills to take to my accountant. Do I take bills from just October until December? (Power, 2nd phone, cable/internet, water) Also, my time space for the little bit I was open is 23.61. Do all of those bills get multiplied by my T/S? For example, if my power bill for Nov was 150, I would take the product of .2361 and 150?

We own our home, and recently received our tax document from our mortgage company. It states our total mortgage interest for the year, but do I need to divide that out to figure the number from me being open mid October through December?

Thanks!

[Thriftylady]

You claim only expenses for the time you were caring for children as far as utilities and such. Your TS seems a little high to me for that little bit of time. Are you sure your calculations are correct? If so then yes you multiply it by your bills to get the amount. Your mort. interest I am not sure. Can't you deduct that on your personal taxes? If so that may be a bigger deduction that way. Your tax person can answer many of those questions, just be sure you use someone who knows daycare taxes.

[Melissalyn]

I thought I did the math right for my time space, but I'm not totally sure! I used the number of hours from Oct 17 to Dec 31st instead of the entire year. I thought I saw a post from Tom Copeland about that if you weren't open an entire year. I'll have to double check. Anyways, I have a spreadsheet where I log all of my cleaning/planning/prep/training hours and that's the number I came up with.. unless I'm doing something wrong with my space percentage. Must get in touch with my tax guy! So stressful!

[Thriftylady]

Okay well you can count hours you had children in care, cleaning and prep when children were not in care, and your training hours only count if you did them at home. Anything you did outside of the home doesn't count. Also you can't double dip (sadly) so you can't count hours for anything else you did while you had kiddos. I am sure others will chime in to help more, and Tom Copeland will chime in also I am sure.

[Melissalyn]

Oh yes, I know I can't track time while kids are in care..the training I do is from home, it's different modules that the Navy requires we complete. I also have two dogs and the Navy has strict cleaning requirements if you have animals so I do spend a lot of time cleaning after and before daycare hours. I guess I really just need to set up a time to actually meet with my tax guy before I submit everything to be sure I'm doing it the right way. I could be totally screwy on my math!

[TomCopeland]

Originally Posted by Melissalyn

Hello!

I am a Child Development Home Provider through the Navy. I accepted my first child on October 19th, 2015, but was working to open since around May of that year.

I'm going through all of my receipts and bills to take to my accountant. Do I take bills from just October until December? (Power, 2nd phone, cable/internet, water) Also, my time space for the little bit I was open is 23.61. Do all of those bills get multiplied by my T/S? For example, if my power bill for Nov was 150, I would take the product of .2361 and 150?

We own our home, and recently received our tax document from our mortgage company. It states our total mortgage interest for the year, but do I need to divide that out to figure the number from me being open mid October through December?

Thanks!

Use the bills from October - December. Divide annual bills to only claim the portion from October - December. Your time-space % for the months you were open sounds fine.

[Thriftylady]

Originally Posted by TomCopeland

Use the bills from October - December. Divide annual bills to only claim the portion from October - December. Your time-space % for the months you were open sounds fine.

Hmmm well if that is the case, I question mine!

[Melissalyn]

Originally Posted by TomCopeland

Use the bills from October - December. Divide annual bills to only claim the portion from October - December. Your time-space % for the months you were open sounds fine.

Thank you!