Manually change depreciation method for business use of home?

scota31

I filed my taxes with a CPA in previous years but using FreeTaxUSA for 2023 tax year. On my Schedule C my CPA has been taking depreciation since 2020 for my home office (business use of home) using the mid-month straight line method at 31.5 years. However, when I input my home office expenses using FreeTaxUSA (note, I put the date began using home for business as 01/01/2020), the depreciation method is automatically calculated using mid-month straight line method at 39 years. I noted that the IRS states that if you began using your home for business for the first time in 2023 then you should use 39 years but if began using your home for business before 2023 you should continue to use the depreciation method used in past tax years.

Is there a way to change the depreciation method to 31.5 years or am I out of luck?

MatthewD

Hello scota31,

I am sorry, but we do not have an option in our FreeTaxUSA software to manually change the deprecation method for a home office. Our software will apply the depreciation rate according to the IRS rules. There are two rates that could have been applied to a home office. 39 years or 31.5 years.

I did some additional research and found in Publication 946, on depreciation, it stated the following, "Office in the home. If your home is a personal-use single family residence and you begin to use part of your home as an office, depreciate that part of your home as nonresidential real property over 39 years (31.5 years if you began using it for business before May 13, 1993)."

In our software, if your home office was placed into use prior to May 13, 1993, we will use the 31.5 year life.