The Augusta Rule for Content Creators (Section 280A)

The Augusta rule (IRC §280A(g)) lets you rent your home to your own business for up to 14 days a year — and the rental income is tax-free to you while being deductible to the business.

Why it fits creators unusually well

Creators already use their homes for business constantly: shoot days, planning sessions, brand-collab days, team summits. Documented properly, those are legitimate rental days at market rates. A realistic illustration is around $1,000 per day across 14 days — roughly $14,000.

Be careful with the big numbers online

In Sinopoli v. Commissioner, a business deducted $3,000 per meeting — $290,900 over three years — and the Tax Court sided with the IRS, because the valuation support and meeting documentation were thin. In a related case, a taxpayer who paid $50,000 for a tax plan used the planner's assumed daily rate as their actual rent, with no fair-market support, and the deduction was reversed in full. A number someone hands you is not a valuation.

What makes it survive scrutiny

You're on both sides of this transaction, so it needs more support than an arm's-length deal, not less. All created in real time:

• A written rental agreement, signed in advance
• A comps file — what comparable venues, studios or event spaces actually charge locally
• Date, time, attendees and business purpose for each day, with contemporaneous minutes
• An invoice from the business that actually gets paid
• A W-9 collected and a 1099-NEC issued to yourself
• The income reported on Schedule E with the §280A(g) offset shown
• 14 days maximum — day 15 makes all of it taxable

The honest summary

This is one of the cleanest deductions in the code when documented, and one of the easiest to lose when it isn't. Reconstructing the paperwork afterwards is exactly what fails in court.