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Owners of home-based businesses should find it easier to take a federal tax deduction for working from their house, under a new option announced last week by the Internal Revenue Service.
Instead of a 43-line form now used to fill out the so-called "home office deduction," taxpayers will have a simplified form to figure out what to claim for business use of their homes. The IRS said the new option, capped at $1,500 per year, will reduce the paperwork and record-keeping burden on small businesses by 1.6 million hours a year. The deduction is based on $5 per square foot for up to 300 square feet of space.
It applies to 2013 income taxes to be filed next year, not those filed this April.
