🎁 $19,000. No forms. No tax. No catch.

If you’re self-employed and use a dedicated space in your home regularly and exclusively for business, yes. If you’re a W-2 employee working remotely, no. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the home office deduction for employees in 2018, and it hasn’t come back.

For the self-employed, the IRS offers two methods, and one of them was specifically designed for people who would rather not calculate their square footage, utility bills, and percentage of mortgage interest attributable to one room.

The simplified method gives you $5 per square foot of your home office, up to 300 square feet. Maximum deduction: $1,500. No receipts, no allocation formulas, no spreadsheet. You just need to know the size of the room. It takes about thirty seconds.

The regular method lets you deduct the actual percentage of your home expenses — mortgage interest or rent, utilities, insurance, repairs, depreciation — proportional to the office’s share of your total living space. This often produces a larger deduction, but it requires tracking every expense and filling out Form 8829, which is the kind of form that makes the simplified method look like a gift from a benevolent government.

The “regularly and exclusively” requirement is real. If your office doubles as a guest bedroom, a playroom, or the place where you fold laundry, the deduction doesn’t apply. The IRS doesn’t need the space to have a door, but it does need to be used for work and only work. A desk in the corner of your living room is a gray area. A converted spare room with a desk, a monitor, and nothing else is not.

Pick the method that saves you more. Run both calculations the first year and compare.

👉 Find out how to maximize your home office deduction

Maybe, but probably not as much as you’re hoping. The medical expense deduction exists, but it has a hurdle that filters out most taxpayers before they even get started.

You can only deduct medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. If your AGI is $80,000, your first $6,000 in medical expenses doesn’t count. You’d need to spend more than $6,000 before you could deduct a single dollar. And then you’d need to itemize, which means your total itemized deductions (including that medical overage) have to exceed the standard deduction to be worth anything.

That’s a high bar. For most people, it means the deduction only kicks in during years with major medical events: surgery, extended hospital stays, ongoing treatment for a serious condition, significant dental work without insurance.

What qualifies is broader than people think. Doctor visits, hospital bills, prescriptions, dental and vision care, mental health therapy, physical therapy, and medical equipment all count. So do insurance premiums you pay with after-tax dollars (not premiums paid through an employer’s pre-tax plan). Transportation to and from medical appointments qualifies too — either actual costs or the IRS standard medical mileage rate.

What doesn’t qualify: cosmetic surgery (unless medically necessary), gym memberships, over-the-counter vitamins, teeth whitening, and anything your insurance already reimbursed you for. The IRS is looking at out-of-pocket costs only.

If you’re self-employed and paying your own health insurance premiums, skip the medical deduction entirely. The self-employed health insurance deduction on Schedule 1 is above-the-line, meaning you don’t need to itemize, and there’s no 7.5% floor. It’s a better deal.

👉 Check which medical expenses you can (and can’t) deduct

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The TaxStache Business Edition breaks down the tax and finance topics that actually matter to business owners, from quick intros to in-depth dives. Plus book, podcast, and video recs to keep you sharp, and a weekly download you can put to use right away.

If you own a business (or you’re building one), this one’s for you.

Your daughter owes nothing. Gifts are not taxable income to the recipient. Full stop. She doesn’t report it, she doesn’t owe income tax on it, and there is no form she needs to file. This is one of the cleanest rules in the tax code.

Your side is slightly more complicated, but probably still painless.

The annual gift tax exclusion for 2026 is $19,000 per recipient. You can give up to $19,000 to any individual in a calendar year without reporting it to the IRS at all. No form, no paperwork, no consequences. If you’re married, your spouse can give another $19,000, bringing the combined total to $38,000 per recipient, per year, tax-free. That’s called gift splitting, and it requires filing Form 709, but no tax is owed.

At $25,000, you’ve exceeded the annual exclusion by $6,000. That means you need to file Form 709 with your tax return. But here’s the part that panics people unnecessarily: you almost certainly won’t owe any gift tax.

The $6,000 overage simply reduces your lifetime gift and estate tax exemption, which in 2026 is approximately $15 million per person. Unless you’ve already given away close to that during your lifetime, the Form 709 is a reporting formality. It’s bookkeeping, not a bill.

Gift tax is paid by the giver, not the receiver. And actual gift tax only applies after you’ve exhausted that massive lifetime exemption. For the vast majority of families, the answer is: file the form, pay nothing, and move on.

Give your daughter the money. Help her buy the house. The IRS has bigger concerns.

👉 Find out exactly how gift tax works