DianeW777
Expert Alumni

Get your taxes done using TurboTax

It may be best to have a tax professional help with all of the tax returns. There are several variables and we don't have all of the information.

Based on your information you could report the 3115 on your tax return to include all depreciation expense that was never used. However then the recapture of all the depreciation will and should be done on your tax return because you will reap the benefits of the deduction and therefore add back that portion of the income as recapture up to the amount of gain.

It's quite involved to accurately report the sale because depreciation is considered allowed or allowable (use it or lose it). The meaning of this is whether you used it or not when it was a rental property, you will recapture it when it is sold. 

 

Simplified, calculate the depreciation for all years, divide it by the number of owners (yourself and siblings). Report a Sale of Business Property and list the appropriate figures as noted below on each tax return.

 

Sale of Business Property:

  1. Income and Expenses at the top
  2. Scroll down to Other Business Situations
    • For TurboTax Desktop: Business Income and Expenses > Less Common Business Situations
  3. Select Sale of Business Property
  4. Select Sales of business or rental property that you haven't already reported.
  5. Answer 'Yes' to Do all of the following apply...?
  6. Enter your sales information:
    1. Description of the Property (Machine Type)
    2. Sales Price/Sales Expenses 
    3. Date acquired and date sold
    4. Cost
    5. Depreciation

Since you didn't take depreciation you could enter only one third of the cost basis for the rental as an asset (and use that for Form 3115), then enter your sale through the rental property asset.

 

Chart for 27.5 year residential rentals.

@By55 

[Edited: 03/26/2025 | 9:13 AM PST]

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