04/732  How does the home office deduction work? If I work from home 1 day
        a week can I report whatever I spend on my workstations/routers/DSL?
        \- you know home office deductions are a red flag for audit. are you
           sure it is worth it? especially when you start dedecting some
           fraction of your PGE bill and only have W2 income. --psb
           \_ it's a red flag if you don't own a business.  If you do own
              a business and have a schedule C, it's standard stuff.  Since
              starting my own business I found that I've lowered my effective
              tax rate to below 15% from around 30%.  The tax code favors
              the self-employed baby!
              \- well my guess is owning a business is a bigger red flag.
                 by "red flag" i just mean audit probability. living in SF
                 bay area is also a "red flag". --psb
        \_ only a red flag if you're red. The home office deduction was
           made considerably easier last year so that if you perform
           any "admin" functions from home, you can deduct expenses. The
           problem is that IRS requires that the office be used _only_ for
           work and the requirements are strict. Having said there's no
           such thing as tax law -- as long as you have supporting docs,
           IRS will leave you alone even if your home office is a spaceship
        \_ Probably not. The business expense relies on the fact that over
           50% of your work on said machines is business related. You do not
           need a home office to rack up business expenses. Your one day
           per week will probably not qualify unless you keep very good
           records of the times when you were doing work. Even then it would
           be tricky.