RESOLVED:  I upgraded to "Live Support" and heard back within a day from TurboTax's AMT Specialist Marty (from Colorado), a CPA with 40+ years tax experience and he figiured out how to enter prior-year nondeductible rental expenses so that they are NOT read as "passive" losses by the program.  As originally noted, passive loss limitations do NOT apply to rental losses when you rent out your own dwelling as long as you live there 14+ days annually (or greater than 10% of the time rented).