You must first consider if you had a legal obligation to pay the mortgage and interest before you can take a deduction per the Internal Revenue Service. Next, because of tax reform, if the mortgage assistance included a home equity line of credit then you cannot take home deductions related to that portion of the loan. However, if the home equity line of credit was strictly used for home improvements and not to pay off other debts (e.g. credit cards) then you can deduct the interest that was paid.
You will have to determine the actual amount of the interest and property taxes that you had paid. You should review the most recent Form 1098-MA that you may have received or any other document (e.g. HUD-1 Closing Disclosure) that reflects the amounts. Please note, the Form 1098-MA is an informational statement provided only for record-keeping purposes and cannot be entered into TurboTax. The TurboTax program will walk you through the input of the applicable information.
You must also be able to itemized deductions. If you are not able to itemize on the Form 1040 Schedule A, then you will not be able to claim any home deductions in 2018. Furthermore, because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the standard deductions have increased. For instance if you are filing a Married Filing Jointly return, then your standard deduction for the 2018 tax year is $24,000. This means that your itemized deductions should exceed the standard deduction in order for it to be beneficial to itemize.
For additional information regarding the Form 1040 Schedule A deductions, please visit the irs.gov website and input a Instructions for Schedule A (Form 1040) (HTML) search.
