From the sounds of struggling cars I'm hearing outside, it seems our streets have still not been plowed. 
That's nuts. Don't you guys pay taxes there? WTF?
It IS nuts. And not only do I pay taxes, but I pay a lot more than I used to, since this is now listed as my work location as well as my residence.
I guess then you are allowed to write off these office expenses?
Don't really have any office expenses, since they gave me all the equipment I need. Would be nice to be able to get a tax refund for roads that can't be traversed, however. Lol
You can claim the "office"/room calculated as part (%) of the overall house cost.
But LTG isn't a contractor. He's an employee. Are you talking about the home office deduction? Last I checked, you couldn't do that as an employee. Did something change?
Not sure, but I've never heard of taxing for work at home either.
These are uncertain and changing times...
Not sure how you mean "taxing for work at home."
If you run a business, you pay taxes. You can get away with operating at a loss for a while, but do it too long and the IRS gets hinky about it, and, oddly, they get hinkier if your revenue stream is low. If you're capitalized at $20k, and generate $50k or more of revenue, they'll take you seriously, even if you report a loss and even if you are otherwise employed. That's okay. But if you're undercapitalized, paying as you go, generating $10-$20k, and deducting losses, you can get away with it for a couple of years, but eventually they start to wonder if you're really trying or just manufacturing a deduction. It becomes a question of whether it's a business or a hobby, especially when a guitar or studio gear gets expensed. So I took losses in years that economic conditions could justify it, but in years that didn't I paid some taxes. It tends to mollify them if you actually do pay taxes.
As for my church contract, the problem there was that the Church obviously had to dictate where and when I did some work, even though on paper, and in fact, actually, I was considered to be volunteering when I conducted rehearsals and played worship services. If they'd contracted me to be a janitor, it would have been different, but as a musician, drawing the line between administration and performance got tricky when expensing instruments and equipment as tools when the tools only got used for volunteer work. See the difficulty?
By the letter of the law, it was legal, by the spirit of the law it was legal and ethical, but that doesn't mean much to the IRS.
