You can deduct expenses you paid in 2014 for the employment use of a work space in your home, as long as you meet one the following conditions:

• The work space is where you mainly (more than 50% of the time) do your work.
• You use the workspace only to earn your employment income. You also have to use it on a regular and continuous basis for meeting clients, customers, or other people in the course of your employment duties.

Keep with your records a copy of Form T2200, Declaration of Conditions of Employment, which has been completed and signed by your employer.

You can deduct the part of your costs that relates to your work space, such as the cost of electricity, heating, maintenance, property taxes, and home insurance. However, you cannot deduct mortgage interest or capital cost allowance.

To calculate the percentage of work-space-in-the-home expenses you can deduct, use a reasonable basis, such as the area of the work space divided by the total finished area (including hallways, bathrooms, kitchens, etc.). For maintenance costs, it may not be appropriate to use a percentage of these costs. For example, if the expenses you paid (such as cleaning materials or paint) were to maintain a part of the house that was not used as a work space, then you cannot deduct any part of them. Alternatively, if the expenses you paid were to maintain the work space only, then you may be able to deduct all or most of them.

If your office space is in a rented house or apartment where you live, deduct the percentage of the rent and any maintenance costs you paid that relate to the work space.

The amount you can deduct for work-space-in-the-home expenses is limited to the amount of employment income remaining after all other employment expenses have been deducted. This means that you cannot use work space expenses to create or increase a loss from employment.

You can only deduct work space expenses from the income to which the expenses relate, and not from any other income.

If you cannot deduct all your work space expenses in the year, you can carry forward the expenses. You can deduct these expenses in the following year as long as you are reporting income from the same employer. However, you cannot create or increase a loss from employment by carrying forward work space expenses.

Rental Income = Revenue generated from rental units during a fiscal year.  This includes any deposit or last month rent collected from your tenants.

You can deduct any reasonable expenses you incur to earn rental income. The two basic types of expenses are current expenses and capital expenses.

For more information on what we consider a current or capital expense, see Current expenses or capital expenses.

If you are modifying a building to accommodate persons with disabilities, buying an older building, or encounter other situations, see Capital expenses – Special situations.

Some expenses your incur are not deductible. For more information see Expenses you cannot deduct.

The following is a list of expenses that are deductible:

• Prepaid expenses
• Line 8521 – Advertising
• Line 8690 – Insurance
• Line 8710 – Interest
• Line 8860 – Legal, accounting, and other professional fees
• Line 8960 – Maintenance and repairs
• Line 8871 – Management and administration fees
• Line 9281 – Motor vehicle expenses
• Line 8810 – Office expenses
• Line 9180 – Property taxes
• Line 9060 – Salaries, wages, and benefits (including employer’s contributions)
• Line 9200 – Travel
• Line 9220 – Utilities
• Line 9270 – Other expenses

Any cost incurred to the renting of the units may qualify against the revenue generated as rental income.