Can You Deduct Costs of Maintaining a Personal Lab Environment?

Yes — ongoing costs of maintaining a personal lab environment used for testing, learning new technologies, or developing client solutions are deductible, as long as the lab is used primarily for business purposes rather than general personal interest or hobby tinkering. Many IT consultants maintain a home lab to test configurations before deploying them for clients, experiment with new tools and platforms relevant to their consulting work, or maintain certifications that require hands-on...