I have lost rent as well as it is unusable and my tenant has been staying in a hotel.
You haven't "lost" rent. You can't lose what you never had to begin with. You'll just have less rental income to report is all. Also, check your policy payout documents. Most rental policies include a "loss of rents" provision where the insurance company will pay up to 85% of lost rent for a set amount of time. Generally anywhere from 6 months to a full year. So if your payout includes an amount for rent, you just report that amount as rental income.
A.) Within Turbotax, do I report it under Wages and Income --> Rental and Royalty Summary --> Any Repair Expenses ?
Yes. But you only report what you paid out of pocket.
B.) Because it is repair (not replacement / improvement), I think, I can report/deduct entire amount out of my pocket (insurance premium + uncovered amount by insurance)
For rental property your insurance premium is already a deductible expense every year you pay it. So you can't claim it twice. You can only claim your out of pocket expense.
C.) This water damage has depreciated my condo's value. How do I compute this depreciation?
For starters, if the insurance company is paying for the repairs, then it's returning the property to same condition it was in prior to then event. So I don't see how there's any loss in value. Also, the TTX program does have it's limits. Under no circumstances and with no exceptions do you ever change the value of an asset that's already being depreciated. Doing so *WILL* completely screw the depreciation history of that asset and all future depreciation will be wrong.
D.) Wondering if I can report lost rent? if so, how?
Again, you have no loss to report on that front. All you would have is less rental income to report. But like I said, check your policy payout papers. I would fully expect your policy to include in the payout an amount for "loss of rent". If so, then you are required to include that payout amount in the rental income received for the entire tax year. Basically, the insurance company is renting the property from you for the period of time they paid for. Typically, insurance policies on a rental will cover anywhere from 50% to 85% of the loss of rent for a specified period of time.
"What is the de minimis safe harbor election?" :
Basically, it allows you to expense certain items that would otherwise be capitalized and depreciated over time if the cost of that item was less than $2,500. But if you're dealing with repair expenses only, this wouldn't be of concern.
For the rest of your items, you can google it at your convenience. For example, if I google 'Applicable Financial Statement IRS" one link takes me to https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?height=800&def_id=26-USC-1830802281-314845245&ter...
