I have a single loan / single 1098 for which I paid the mortgage the entire year. I also had a home office for only the last few months of year.
When doing the home office deduction within the Wages & Income section, I needed to enter my mortgage interest. Under the hyperlink "How do I enter my mortgage interest if the time I used the office and the time I paid mortgage interest are not the same?", TurboTax specifically instructs to click "Add another Lender" and break it into two entries: One for the months I had the home office (and selecting that to be included in the home office deduction), and another for the months I did NOT have a home office (and NOT selecting that to be included in the home office deduction).
Splitting the mortgage interest into the two entries was clear (just make it proportional to the number of months I was using / not using the office). But now I am looking at "Box 2 - Outstanding mortgage principal" and I'm unclear whether I should split that as well, or put the total principal of the loan in both. I am worried about double-counting my principal if it's part of a later 1098 deduction calculation -- but if it's not part of a calculation and is just something that gets listed on a reported form, I'm worried about misrepresenting the principal (for example, I don't know if each individual "loan" will be listed separately in the tax filing).
