Home daycare tax deductions: the tax kit v0.1.0
For family child care providers: work out your time-space percentage the way IRS Publication 587 does, total the year's meals and snacks at the standard meal rates, log expenses by Schedule C line, and print year-end statements for parents' dependent care credit. Free, kept on this device, for your tax preparer.
How to use it
- Time-space: type your hours and your home's square feet; the percentage and the share of your home costs appear.
- Meals: add each day's count of meals and snacks served to eligible children.
- Expenses: add each receipt to its Schedule C line; save the log as a spreadsheet for your preparer.
- In January, print each family's statement for their Form 2441.
Ideas for class
- Log meals every day or every week: a year rebuilt in March from memory is the record auditors question.
- Keep receipts with the dates the log shows.
- Save the logs as files at the end of each month; they are the only copy.
Related
- Contract, handbook and letters
- Daily log
- Preschool theme planner: the week, planned and printed
- Daycare and preschool newsletter maker
- Daycare sign-in app: a tablet by the door with a live count
- Daycare sign-in sheet, daily or weekly
- Daycare daily report slip: infant, toddler and preschool
- Name tags and cubby labels for preschool
- Circle time board: calendar, weather, days at school and helper
Questions
What is the time-space percentage?
The share of your home's costs your daycare can claim when the space is also lived in: the share of the home used regularly for daycare times the share of the year's hours it is used (8,760, or 8,784 in a leap year). Pub 587's example gives 17.12%.
Which meal rates does it use?
The standard meal and snack rates in IRS Publication 587's Table 3 for the year chosen. A year the IRS hasn't published shows the USDA food program's rates as expected, and says so.
Is this tax advice?
No. It works the publication's own steps and prints the figures for your tax preparer, who has the last word.
Nothing you type here is sent to us. The logs and your settings stay in this browser; a taxpayer ID is printed and never kept. No account, no ads.