Deductability of real estate taxes paid at home closing / settlement

[jshep110]

Bought a new residence 9/11. Settlement statement has a line item break out of all the debits and credits accounting from the day of the closing. Document lists under "Proration/Adjustment" I paid $1770 for "2nd half 2017 Country Taxes paid by seller 9/11-1/1" and under "Impounds" it says I paid another $1450 for "Property Taxes to Wells Fargo NA 3.000 months at $484.88/month". Can I assume that I add both of those line items together to establish my "property taxes paid" in turbotax? Or does it matter that at closing neither of those payment went directly to the county?

Wells Fargo 1098 says real estate taxes $0.00 by the way. Thanks

[PatriciaV]

Yes, you may deduct all property taxes paid at closing.

The lender only reports property taxes that were paid on your behalf. If you did not escrow property taxes with the lender, Form 1098 would report zero.

[jshep110 · Accepted solution]

To close the loop on how I resolved with this question - 

I was able to find a document from Well Fargo from February which stated the sum of the WF escrow account. When I subtracted out from that escrow total the monthly mortgage portion paid into escrow for the months I'd paid the mortgage up to that point, I backed into a number similar to the "Property Taxes to Wells Fargo NA 3.000 months at $484.88/month" total. No payments were made out of the WF escrow account toward county taxes in 2017. So my presumption then was that the $1450 amount went into escrow and would be used to pay property taxes in 2018 rather than 2017, so I only reported the $1770 number as county taxes paid at closing for 2017.

[OldTaxDude]

You MAY NOT deduct the taxes paid by seller at closing.  See IRC 164(d).  The portion of the taxes up to the date of closing are deductible by the seller.