Taxes and declaring expenses as a freelancer

Hello, my thanks in advance for the help.

I am a freelancer, and would like to know if I can declare the total expense of office goods (computer, printer) in one year, or must I expense them gradually over 4 years?

Or can I decide to ammortize the expenses over as many years as I want? For example, can I chose to declare my monitor over 2 years, 10 years, etc.

And if anyone has extra time and would like to answer some more (bonus) questions:
- Can 100% of one's handy bills be declared?
- Likewise, can a home telephone (I work from home), also be declared as an expense?
- I declare my home office space, but can I also declare the washroom (say 20% of the rent of the washroom)?

For anyone else interested in such questions, there is a nice (German-language) document available from the Bayrerisches Staatsministerium der Finanzen here: Steuertipps für Arbeitnehmer 2005. Unfortunately, It does not answer my question exactly (and my German is not tops).

Thanks again!

You can declare the mobile phone bills for full if you use it only for business purposes. Or just the same with your home phone you have to estimate the percentage of the usage and then you can claim that.

The only thing they can do is deny your claims and your not off worse than without claiming it at all.

But I would recommend you go to a "Steuerberater" or at least get a piece of software like this:
http://www.amazon.de/Buhl-WISO-Sparbuch-20...UTF8&s=software

And you can also deduct the cost of the software from your taxes.