🏡 Compensation Strategy · 3 of 7

Rent your home to your business.
14 days, tax-free.

Named after the locals in Augusta, GA who rent their houses out during the Masters every year, §280A(g) lets you do the same — collect rent personally, tax-free, while the business deducts every dollar.

14 days maximum per year $0 personal tax on the rental income 100% deductible by the business IRC §280A(g)

The 60-second pitch

Under IRC §280A(g), if you rent your personal residence (or a vacation home) for fewer than 15 days during the tax year, the rental income is completely excluded from your gross income — you don't even report it.

But the renter — your S-corp, partnership, or LLC — can still deduct the rent as an ordinary and necessary business expense under §162. The result: money moves from the business (deductible) to you (tax-free).

The most common use: holding board meetings, annual planning retreats, all-hands offsites, photo shoots, or client events at your home. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (signed July 2025) made TCJA individual rates permanent but left §280A(g) untouched. The rule survives intact into 2025, 2026, and beyond.

Real example · Marketing agency owner

The $7,770 quiet annual win

Sara owns a marketing agency taxed as an S-corp. She lives in a $2M home in suburban Philly. Comparable conference-style venue rental in her ZIP runs $1,500/day (per a study from a local rental-comp service). Twelve times a year, she hosts a full-day team offsite or quarterly board planning at her home — plus a 2-day annual photo shoot. 14 days total.

14 days × $1,500 fair-market daily rate	$21,000
S-corp deducts as rent expense (§162)	−$21,000
Sara reports as personal rental income	$0 (§280A(g))
Federal tax saved (37% top bracket)	$7,770
PA state tax saved (3.07%)	$645

Total tax saved (year 1)

$8,415

Savings over 10 years

$84,150+

Sara gets $21,000 of tax-free cash; the S-corp's profit drops by $21K (lowering K-1 pass-through income).

The step-by-step checklist

Run a fair-market rental comp study. Get 3+ real quotes from local conference venues, hotel meeting rooms, or Peerspace/Splacer listings comparable to your home. Save the screenshots and emails. This is the single most important audit document.
Document a real business purpose for each day. Board meeting minutes, agenda, attendee list, photos, calendar invites. "We talked shop over coffee" is not a meeting.
Sign a written rental agreement between you (personally, as homeowner) and your business — like you would with any third-party landlord. Specify the date, rate, scope of use, and which spaces.
Issue an invoice + actually pay the rent. Business writes a check / transfers to you. Not a paper journal entry. Real money in your personal bank account.
Stay at or under 14 days/year. Day 15 blows the entire exclusion — every dollar becomes taxable Schedule E rental income.
Watch the Form 1099-MISC trap. If the business issues you a 1099-MISC (box 1 rents) and you don't report it, the IRS may flag the mismatch. Tax pros often skip the 1099 for §280A(g) rentals (defensible under Reg. §1.6041-1) — but check with your tax professional on your state's filing position.
Don't deduct the home's utilities/depreciation separately. The §280A(g) exclusion is binary — you get the income exclusion or you treat it as rental property with deductions, never both.
Keep all records 7 years. Rental comp study, agreements, meeting agendas, board minutes, payment records.

The law — cite this in your file

IRC §280A(g) The rule itself. "If a dwelling unit is used during the taxable year by the taxpayer as a residence and such dwelling unit is actually rented for less than 15 days during the taxable year, then... no deduction otherwise allowable... shall be allowed... and the income derived from such use for the taxable year shall not be included in the gross income of such taxpayer."
IRC §162(a)(3) Business rent deduction. "Rentals... required to be made as a condition to the continued use or possession... of property to which the taxpayer has not taken or is not taking title" are deductible. The business is the renter; rent is deductible.
IRC §280A(d)(1) "Used as a residence" definition. The home must be used by the taxpayer for personal purposes for more than the greater of (a) 14 days, or (b) 10% of days rented at fair rental. For an Augusta-rule scenario, you live there year-round — so you trivially qualify.
Reg. §1.280A-3 Implementation regs. Detail on the §280A allocation rules — useful if you ever cross 14 days and have to convert to rental treatment.
Sinopoli v. Comm'r (T.C. Memo 2023-105) The cautionary tale. Three S-corp owners deducted $290K of "rent" to each other under §280A(g). Tax Court allowed only ~$16K — the rest was disallowed for inflated rates and inadequate proof. The takeaway: rates must be defensible.
OBBBA (July 2025) §280A(g) unchanged. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made TCJA individual rates permanent but did not modify the 14-day exclusion. Rule survives 2025+.

Audit risk flags

Above-market daily rate. The Sinopoli case proves the IRS will recharacterize inflated rents. $1,500/day for a typical suburban home with no business amenities is hard to defend. Get real comps.
No business purpose. "Family dinner" or "personal birthday party" isn't a board meeting. The day has to be a substantive business use — agenda, minutes, attendees.
No written rental agreement. Auditors expect a contract between you (landlord) and your business (tenant). Make one.
No actual cash transfer. Just booking a journal entry "Dr. Rent / Cr. Owner Distribution" without moving money is a paper deduction. Pay yourself.
Sole proprietors trying to use it. A sole prop can't pay rent to itself — there's no separate entity. You need an S-corp, partnership, multi-member LLC, or C-corp on the other side.
Crossing 15 days. One day over and the entire year's income becomes taxable Schedule E rental income — with all the home-office allocation rules.
1099-MISC issued to yourself and not reported. If the business issues you a 1099 for rents (box 1) and you don't pick it up on your 1040, you'll get a CP2000 notice. Either skip the 1099 or report-and-exclude.

When not to use it

You're a sole proprietor or single-member LLC (disregarded entity). Without a separate tax entity, there's no "rental to your business" — it's just yourself paying yourself. Convert to S-corp first.
You'd need to fake the business purpose. Inflating meeting count or fabricating attendees to hit 14 days is fraud. Two real meetings a year + one retreat is fine — don't push it.
Your home is also your principal place of business. The §280A home-office allocation can complicate the §280A(g) analysis. Talk to your tax professional before doubling up.
Your state doesn't conform. A handful of states have their own quirks on home-rental income (NY has aggressive rules; CA recently scrutinized this). Verify your state.
You're a passive owner. If you don't actually conduct business activity from the home, no auditor will buy that "board meetings" happened there.
The total saving is under $500. Below a few thousand in tax saved, the documentation burden may exceed the benefit. Stick with bigger plays.

PilePilot keeps your §280A(g) file audit-ready.

The Books agent flags rent-from-owner transactions, prompts you for the comp study + agenda upload, and stores everything in the Vault next to your formation docs. Tax-time defense in a click.

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Built for real small businesses. Schedule C + 1120-S ready.

Not tax advice. §280A(g) requires a separate business entity, fair-market rental rates, real business purpose, and contemporaneous documentation. The Sinopoli case (T.C. Memo 2023-105) shows the IRS is actively challenging inflated rates. Confirm with your tax professional.