Many thanks, Scott. I have a local tax attorney who is a retired engineer and delights in issues such as this one, I'll throw some money at him and see what he can find out. As AMS noted, my understanding is that the IRS gets especially unhappy with anybody who tries to deduct their house as a business expense, and also for people who try to write off computers as business expenses. The IRS, it seems, does not want people using the IRS tax laws to their advantage, and the IRS does not have to pay attention to legal precedent in determining allowable deductions. Taxpayers have to be willing to take their cases to tax court if challenged. There may be better tax advantage if several people got together to form a small trading business to share computer and financial info, operated it as a small business from a small office, and shared the cost of the tax attorney and accountant, and I suspect this would be more defensible, especially if they got together and sent out a newsletter or some marketable product. I am, after all, lobotomized by MBA school, and a creature of opportunity. Give me a few weeks to look into this....
Let us all hope for tax reform. |
