[jrochkind1]

My guess would be what's filling the gap is pre-existing savings/family money.

My point is just that the IRS has standards for what you can deduct or treat as a business expense (rather than wages), and it is not "when you work 24/7 a lot of things look like business expenses".

Not paying for your own apartment and instead treating it like a business expense still sounds like tax fraud to me, whether or not the business has it's own office yet.