If you earn rental income on a home or building you own, receive royalties or have income reported on a Schedule K-1 from a partnership or S corporation, then you must prepare a Schedule E with your tax return. You must report all income and losses from these activities on the Schedule E as well as your personal tax return.  If none of the above applies to you the see the procedure for deleting the form. 

Here's the general procedure for viewing the forms list and deleting unwanted forms, schedules, and worksheets in TurboTax Online:

1. Open or continue your return in TurboTax.
2. In the left menu, select Tax Tools and then Tools.
3. In the pop-up window Tool Center, choose Delete a form.
4. Select Delete next to the form/schedule/worksheet in the list and follow the instructions.

More information on Schedule E-

Reporting rental income on Schedule E

One of the more common reasons you may find yourself filling out a Schedule E is if you own real estate that you rent out to tenants. This also includes the rental income you receive when renting out space in the same home you reside in. In most cases, the IRS doesn’t consider you self-employed, so you won’t have to prepare a Schedule C. However, if you provide a range of services to tenants or manage your rental properties as your main business activity, then your participation in the rental may rise to the level of self-employment and require you to file a Schedule C rather than Schedule E.

Partners and shareholders of S corporations

When you earn income as a partner or as a shareholder of an S corporation, you must report your share of the business income on the Schedule E. For purposes of the Schedule E, the actual business the partnership or S corporation engages in isn’t relevant to your obligation to prepare the schedule. Generally, you will receive a Schedule K-1 from the partnership or corporation that reports your share of income, losses and deductions. You must use the figures from the K-1 when preparing your Schedule E. These items will “flow-through” to your personal income tax return and are taxed with all other income you receive that you don’t report on Schedule E.

Limitation on Schedule E losses

A Schedule E does not only report income. You might use it to report a net loss from your particular business activity. Generally, when you engage in an activity for profit, the IRS limits your deductible loss to the amount you are “at-risk” for.

To illustrate, if you invest $50,000 in a partnership and at the end of the year your share of losses are $60,000; the IRS only allows you to deduct $50,000 since you are not responsible for reimbursing the partnership for the excess $10,000 in losses.

You must also consider the passive activity rule to determine if further limitations exist on the amount of losses you can deduct. Though the rules are fairly complex and include many exceptions, the IRS treats your business activity as passive if you don’t actively participate in it. In this case, you can only deduct passive losses to the extent of your passive income.

How to file your Schedule E

When filling out the Schedule E, you only need to fill out the relevant parts that relate to the type of income or loss you incur. For example, if you have partnership income, then only fill out the section that applies to partnerships. You must attach the schedule to your personal Form 1040 and submit it by the filing deadline.

A Schedule E has popped up. I do not own any rental properties. How do I handle this? 

You should be able to delete the Schedule E using these steps. There may have been a question where TurboTax thought you needed it.

TurboTax Online

1. While in your return, click on Tax Tools > Tools (in the black bar at the side of your screen).  
2. In the Tools Center, under Other helpful links click on Delete a form.
3. Click Delete next to the form you want to delete and follow the onscreen instructions. 
4. Once you have finished deleting the desired form(s) click the Continue with My Return box (in the lower right of your screen).

TurboTax CD/Download

1. Go into Forms Mode by clicking on the Forms icon in the top right of the blue bar. 
2. In the Forms in My Return list on the left, click on the form you wish to open and delete.
3. Click on the Delete Form box at the bottom of the screen.
4. To return to the interview, click on the Step-By-Step icon in the top right of the blue bar.  

I just spent 50 minuets with a TurboTax expert explaining why Schedule E is not ready to be used. As of 2-20-2021

She could not give me a date as to when it will be ready or how I'm supposed to find out when I can file my taxes.

Any help anyone?

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@rmalvasio1 wrote:

I just spent 50 minuets with a TurboTax expert explaining why Schedule E is not ready to be used. As of 2-20-2021

She could not give me a date as to when it will be ready or how I'm supposed to find out when I can file my taxes.

Any help anyone?

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The 1040 Schedule E is available and there are no pending updates.

Thank you,

The tax expert had my delete that form and it reduced my refund by $1000!

I do own a rental and have used that form in the past. She said TurboTax hasn't finalized the form and is working on it. No information when it will be ready for use.