Hi AmyC & many thanks for the unexpected reply! I kinda thought this topic had died, since receiving 2 similar discouraging replies before yours. In the meantime, I researched other legal/tax websites about claiming casualty losses - they seem to indicate all kinds of stipulations for our situation; summarizing:
You can deduct only the amount of all your casualty losses for the year that exceed 10% of your adjusted gross income for the year. This greatly limits or eliminates many casualty loss deductions. To add insult to injury, you must also subtract $100 from each casualty loss you suffered during the year. This reduction applies to each casualty loss.
The stipulation of the +10% of AGI, etc. seems very complicated, given my situation. My mind trends back to when I was self-employed; related expenses are (or should be :D) fully deductible - without all these AGI complications. But that may not be the case.
Am I correct in thinking the primary issue is - casualty "loss" (unreimbursed) vs. casualty "repair expense" (money actually spent)? And that by properly classifying these repair expenses, I can claim them all? Really don't want to get in any hot water over this; we spent about $1,500 and I did alot of the work myself.
If I knew how to enter this data into TT Deluxe, I would be able to see how it affects our return overall and then decide if we want to try and claim. If claiming only increases our refund by a small amount, it won't be worth it...
So sorry long, many, many thanks! Have a nice day 😄
