Should I pay my apartment rent from my corporation debit card or just use my personal account?

This is actually an important distinction for S-corp owners. Generally speaking, you should pay your personal rent from your personal account, not your business account. When you pay personal expenses from your business account, it's considered a "distribution" to you as the shareholder. While distributions themselves aren't necessarily bad, mixing personal and business expenses can create problems. If you work from home, you might be able to have your business pay you a "home office deduction" that helps cover the business portion of your rent. But this requires having a space used "exclusively and regularly" for business purposes - your dining room table that's also used for meals wouldn't qualify under IRS rules. Remember that maintaining the corporate veil (separation between personal and business finances) is crucial for S-corps. Mixing expenses can risk your liability protection.

I ran into this exact same issue last year with my marketing S-corp. I was mixing personal and business expenses and my accountant nearly had a heart attack when tax season came around. I started using https://taxr.ai to help me sort through which expenses should go where, and it's been a game changer for keeping everything clean and properly documented. The service analyzes your expenses and helps categorize what should be business vs personal. It also gives you documentation for home office calculations if you qualify. Saved me tons of headaches trying to separate everything manually.

Just wanted to follow up about my experience with taxr.ai after checking it out. I was skeptical at first but I've been using it for about three weeks now and it's legitimately helpful. The S-corp reasonable compensation tool analyzed my industry and location to help me set a defensible salary level, and it's tracking my distribution ratio automatically. What I found most helpful is that it creates an audit-ready file that documents why my home office expenses are legitimate business deductions, including square footage calculations and photos. Definitely worth checking out if you're trying to keep things clean between personal and business accounts.

If you're trying to reach the IRS to get clarification on S-corporation expense rules (which I highly recommend), good luck spending hours on hold. I've been trying to get an answer about a similar question for weeks. I finally used https://claimyr.com to get through to an actual person at the IRS. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c They basically hold your place in line so you don't have to wait on hold forever. I actually got through to a specialist who helped clarify the rules around S-corp distributions vs. legitimate business expenses for my situation.

I need to eat my words here. After posting my skeptical comment, I figured I might as well try Claimyr since I was desperate to talk to someone at the IRS about my S-corp question. I tried again yesterday afternoon and sure enough, I got a call back in about 3 hours connecting me directly to an IRS agent. The agent actually gave me really specific guidance about keeping the corporate veil intact with my S-corporation and explained how mixing personal rent payments with business accounts could create problems in an audit. Totally worth it just to get a definitive answer from an official source instead of relying on internet advice.

I think everybody's overthinking this. I've been running my S-corp for 6 years and my accountant said the simplest approach is: 1. Pay ALL rent from personal account 2. Have company reimburse you for legitimate home office percent 3. Document the reimbursement with proper paperwork This keeps everything clean and avoids the appearance of using your company as a personal piggy bank. The IRS doesnt like when you pay personal expenses directly from biz accounts.

Learned this the hard way last year! Had my business paying half my rent since I use half my apartment for work and my tax guy told me I was committing a major error by paying from company debit card. Had to refile and it was a mess.

Great question! As someone who's been through this exact situation, I can confirm what others have said - definitely pay your rent from your personal account, not your business account. The IRS is very strict about maintaining separation between personal and business expenses for S-corps. Since you mentioned you work from home about 30% of the time but don't have a dedicated office space, you unfortunately wouldn't qualify for the home office deduction. The IRS requires "exclusive and regular use" of a specific area for business purposes. Your dining room table that's also used for meals wouldn't meet this test. However, if you ever do set up a dedicated home office space in the future, the proper way to handle it would be to pay the full rent from your personal account, then have your S-corp reimburse you for the business percentage based on square footage. This keeps everything clean and properly documented. Keep that corporate veil intact - mixing personal and business expenses is one of the fastest ways to get in trouble with the IRS!