Is there a tax deduction for renting office space in service of employer?
"I disagree with BrenBran, I don't think this is qualified as unreimbursed employee expense. For it to qualify, it has to be ordinary and necessary, and specifically - necessary for your employer. This is not the case for you, as there's no such necessity. From employer's perspective, you can work from your home just as well. In fact, the expense is your personal, as it is your choice, not ""unreimbursed employee expense"" since your employer didn't even ask you to do it. You should clarify this with a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in New York)." "According to this post on TurboTax forums, you could deduct it as an ""Unreimbursed Employee"" expense. This would seem consistent with the IRS Guidelines on such deductions: An expense is ordinary if it is common and accepted in your trade, business, or profession. An expense is necessary if it is appropriate and helpful to your business. An expense does not have to be required to be considered necessary. Office rent is not listed explicitly among the examples of deductible unreimbursed employee expenses, but this doesn't mean it's not allowed.  Of course you should check with a tax professional if you want to be sure." "If you are a telecommuter and in good terms with your employer, then all you need is contact your employer and explain your situation. Ask them for a short letter that indicates: ""1. they require you to work from a privately rented office (or from a home office for those who prefer working from home), 2. this is one of the terms of your employment, and, 3. they will not reimburse you for this expense."" With this letter in your hand, you satisify both the ""convenience of employer"" test AND the deduction of the rent for your private office as a unreimbursed employee expense.  The IRS cannot expect your employer to open an office branch in your city just for your sake, nor can they expect you to commute to your employer's city for work, which is an impossiblity considering the distance. Additionally, the IRS cannot ""force"" telecommuters to work from home. The key is to get a letter from your employer. You'd be surprised how easily they are willing to write such letter for you."
"I'll assume that you would work as a regular (part-time) employee. In this case, you are technically a Grenzgänger. You will need a specific kind of Swiss permit (""Grenzgängerbewilligung"") allowing you to work in Switzerland. Your employer typically takes care of this - they have more experience than you. You being non-EU might make matters a bit more complicated. Your employer will withhold 4.5% of your gross income as source taxes (""Quellensteuer""). When you do your tax declaration, your entire income will be taxed in Germany, since this is where you live. This will happen after your first year of work. Be prepared for a large tax bill (or think of this as an interest-free loan from Germany to you). However, due to the Doppelbesteuerungsabkommen (DBA), the 4.5% you already paid to Switzerland will be deducted from the taxes you are due in Germany. Judging from my experience, the tax authorities in Germany are not fluent in the DBA - particularly in areas far away from the Swiss border. I had to gently remind them to deduct the source taxes, explicitly referring to the DBA. The bill was revised without problems, but I strongly recommend making sure that your source taxes are correctly deducted from your German tax liability. Once your local German tax office understands your situation, you will be asked to make quarterly prepayments, which will be calculated in a way to minimize your later overall tax liability. Budget for these. You didn't ask, but I'll tell you anyway: social security will normally be handled by Switzerland as the country of employment - not the country of residence. Your employer will automatically deduct old age, unemployment and accident insurance and contribute to a pension plan, all in Switzerland. However... ... if you do a lot of your work in Germany (>25%), which certainly applies if you plan on mostly working remotely, your social security will be handled by your country of residence. This is a major pain for your employer, because now your Swiss employer needs to understand the German social security system, how much and to whom to co-pay and so forth. This is a major area of study, and your employer may not want to spend all this effort. My employer has looked at this and requires anyone living outside of Switzerland to limit working from home to less than 25%, because by extension, they would some day also need to do the same for employees living in France, Italy, Austria... or even the UK. They don't want to dig through half the EU states' social security regulations. Therefore, you would not be able to work remotely from Germany for my employer. This is actually a fairly recent development that only entered in force at the beginning of 2015 (before that, this was all a bit of a gray area). Your prospective employer may not be aware of all details. So you will need to think about whether you actively want to point them at this (possibly ruining your plans of working remotely), or not (and possibly getting major problems and post-payments years later). Finally, I think you can choose whether you want to have your health insurance in Switzerland or in Germany (unless your Swiss obligation to be insured is waived because of your part-time status). Some Swiss health insurers offer plans where they cooperate with German health insurers, so you can go to German doctors just like a German resident. Source: I have been a Grenzgänger from Germany into Switzerland off and on for over ten years now. I can't say anything about whether your German visa restricts you from working in Switzerland. You may want to ask about this at Expatriates.SE, but I'd much rather ask your local German authorities than random strangers on the internet." The taxes that are deducted from you paycheck are estimated from the expected annual income you receive from the employer. In the same way, the employer will deduct from that expected annual income the tax deductions you would get for the number of dependents you specify. Hence your net income will be lower, your annual tax obligation also, which can than be calculated down to the period of your paycheck. Why should the rich who buy more expensive homes be subisdized by those who pay less, or from those who rent? A person who buys a 500k home in a high property tax area wins twice. Once but having more tax breaks by being able to deduct more than your average working class person who buys a house at 250k and the second time when they get nicer schools, public services etc at other people's dime. SF home prices are a combination or speculation investment and poor government control. SF prices are at Tokyo levels when the population density is at 1/10. That is a failure of local government policy to build more homes, not from lack of tax breaks.  If your community wants to pay higher taxes for more local services, power to you and I encourage it, but you shouldn't be subsidized by those who dont. Imo, people shouldn't be punished for not owning property or living in a state where they think sales tax is better than income or property. Home of Shanghai is Chinese real estate agency based in Shanghai.  http://www.homeofshanghai.com help exparts to rent apartment in Shanghai and find their dream home in China.  http://www.homeofshanghai.com  offers Shanghai Properties for rent by Type:  New apartments for rent in Shanghai Old apartments for rent in Shanghai Lane houses for rent in Shanghai Villas for rent in Shanghai Offices for rent in Shanghai Serviced apartments for rent in Shanghai Not authoritative, but according to TurboTax: If your new cell phone acts as both your business and personal phone, you are only allowed to deduct the portion used for business from your taxable income. It’s important for you to hang on to your itemized phone bill and receipts to ensure that you’re deducting the right amounts and to keep records of your deduction. Since the usage you're describing sounds like a very small amount of the overall usage, it will probably be difficult to justify a business expense deduction. "Old question, but in the comments of the accepted answer, I believe Nate Eldredge is correct and littleadv is incorrect. Nate copied the actual quote from the IRS guidelines, quoted below: An expense is ordinary if it is common and accepted in your trade, business, or profession. An expense is necessary if it is appropriate and helpful to your business. An expense doesn't have to be required to be considered necessary. Noise cancelling headphones certainly count as ""appropriate and helpful to your business"" in the software industry, especially with the trend of open office layouts. And because of the ubiquitous distractions inherent in the aforementioned office space, noise cancelling headphones are becoming quite ""common and accepted"" for use by developers.  I'd be more hesitant about the keyboard and monitor, as presumably the employer is providing those already. As using your own could be said to just be a personal preference over those provided, the argument that providing your own version is ""appropriate and helpful"" is a little more shaky.  I am not a tax lawyer, so don't come after me if you get audited, but my guess from reading the actual IRS guidelines is noise cancelling headphones: probably, keyboard and monitor: maybe." Chris, since you own your own company, nobody can stop you from charging your personal expenses to your business account. IRS is not a huge fan of mixing business and personal expenses and this practice might indicate to them that you are not treating your business seriously, and it should classify your business as a hobby. IRS defines deductible business expense as being both: ordinary AND necessary. Meditation is not an ordinary expense (other S-corps do not incur such expense.) It is not a necessary expense either. Therefore, you cannot deduct this expense. http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Deducting-Business-Expenses Checkout the worksheet on page 20 of Pub 535.  Also the text starting in the last half of the third column of page 18 onward. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p535.pdf The fact that you get a W-2 is irrelevant as far as I can see.  Your self-employment business has to meet some criteria (such as being profitable) and the plan needs to be provided through your own business (although if you're sole proprietor filing on Schedule C, it looks like having it in your own name does the trick).  Check the publication for all of the rules. There is this exception that would prevent many people with full-time jobs on W-2 from taking the deduction: Other coverage. You cannot take the deduc­tion for any month you were eligible to partici­pate in any employer (including your spouse's) subsidized health plan at any time during that month, even if you did not actually participate. In addition, if you were eligible for any month or part of a month to participate in any subsidized health plan maintained by the employer of ei­ther your dependent or your child who was un­der age 27 at the end of 2014, do not use amounts paid for coverage for that month to fig­ure the deduction. (Pages 20-21).  Sounds like in your case, though, this doesn't apply. (Although your original question doesn't mention a spouse, which might be relevant to the rule if you have one and he/she works.) The publication should help.  If still in doubt, you'll probably need a CPA or other professional to assess your individual situation.