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QUESTION:
We have a basement suite and have done a fair bit of landscaping this year including garden beds, sod, etc... can we expense the "non-personal" part?
Thanks.
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davidingram replies:
Landscaping is always a difficult item but basically it would go like this. If your tenant had exclusive use of a back yard for instance and you landscaped the backyard for them, 100% would be deductible.
If you have three kids and the tenant is a single male who is never there and your landscaping was for your use, nothing would be deductible.
If you just made the whole place look better and everyone uses the area equally, it should be deductible based on some sort of ratio which might be 50/50, 60/40, 25/75 or even 10/90. Remember that dual use areas where you and the tenant use the same area are NOT deductible whether it is a hallway, a laundry room, a rec room or a patio.
Likelwise, if you have an office in the home set up in your dining room (where the family eats when you are not using it as an office) the common use area is not deductible.
I say that sitting at one of two terminals in my living room. It is a dual use roomand not deductible for business purposes even though I can prove that I spend more time at this terminal then I do at the one in the office in West Vancouver.
I will be turning the living room into a pure office soon though and it will then be a deductible area.
Hoping this helps, I remain
David Ingram's US/Canada Services
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