Ink and ink refills, among other office supplies, can be deducted when they are used in a printer that directly supports your home-based business. Go ahead and use all of the breaks the government provides to reduce your tax costs. Usually, operating a home-based business is rough, and these tax breaks are designed to ease that difficulty, so you might as well take advantage of them.
All sorts of office supplies are deductible, including pens, pencils, envelopes, tape, paper, stationery, folders, address labels, post-it notes, postage stamps, and printer ink. The costs incurred by purchasing these items can be deducted from the taxes you owe every year. If your expenses can be shown to be for the operation of your home business, a lot of it can be deducted.
Your computer and your printer, along with other office equipment, are deductible as well when used in running your home-based business. Deductible expenses include: telephone expenses, shipping costs, web hosting fees, your Internet Service Provider charges, training and research materials, advertising costs, accountant costs, bank fees, interest expenses, and office space, among others.
For teachers, printer ink refills become a deductible expense as well. There is one profession that, despite it’s value to society, tends to be overworked and underpaid. That profession is teachers, and they deserve some kind of break. There are lots of times that a teacher has to buy supplies to help educate their students, and those supplies are often paid for out of the teacher’s own pocket. This is known to the IRS, so teachers are allowed to take certain expenses as deductions. On a separate line on the 1040 Form, you can take certain things as an educator expense deduction; printer ink and ink refills qualify. This deduction is completely separate from the standard deduction.
If you are a freelance writer, you can deduct printer ink on your tax forms at tax time. Even if you work full time at another job and you own a small business, the deduction for printer ink and other related office supplies and equipment can be taken. Lots of jobs and occupations need the use of a computer, printer, and ink. What is required is that you need to be able to prove that your printer and printer ink is used with and for the purpose of a business that you own, then it can be a deduction. Talk to an accountant; you want to be knowledgeable of any potential deductions that you are able to take.
The IRS publication No.587 is designated for “Business Use Of Your Home”. Perhaps this article will assist you in determining if your expenses are deductible or not. What you need to do during the year is to keep perfect records (or as close to perfect as you can get) of all of your costs, including ink refills and other forms of printer ink. When tax time comes, you’ll know everything you need to in order to utilize all the possible deductions.
Steve Quentin has looked heavily into ways to save money on ink and even an ink refill, and it turns out that tax breaks are one of those ways.