Property was rented for 6 months. This is why the 50% is right for me having used it as primary residence.
Thanks for clarifying that for me. But no, it's not right. The property was 100% business use **during the time it was classified as a rental**. Now if it was classified as a rental from Jan 1 through Dec 31, then yes, 50% would be right.
I do have my 2015 tax return in PDF. However, I do not see a 4562 for my property in question or cost (net of land). All I have is a Schedule E for it. Was this not done right when I purchased in 2015?
Several Possibilities. First possibility is that when you saved the 2015 return to PDF, you did not select the option to save everything. You only selected the option to save "forms needed for filing" or "forms for your records". With those two options, it's possible the 4562's for the rental property were not included.
Now if you have the "official" 4562 form which prints in the normal portrait format, that confirms you did take depreciation, yet didn't elect the option that saves the other two "unofficial" 4562's that print in landscape format.
Another possibility is, things were not done correctly on the 2015 tax return, or maybe 2015 was not the tax year it was rented? I say this, because if one is confused (which is quite easy) and its the tax return you "prepared" in 2015, then it would be the tax return for 2014 that you prepared in 2015.
Second possibility, is that if the property was not classified as a rental for the entire tax year. For example, you converted it to a rental in say, April of 2015 and converted it back to personal use in say, October of 2015. So the property was not classified as a rental for the entire tax year. In that case, you are not required to depreciate the property then. Therefore, no 4562 would be needed.
To further clarify that, if the rental classification crossed tax years, you'll need to depreciate. For example, you converted it to a rental in Oct 2015 then converted it back to personal use in March 2016. Technically, it was classified as a rental less than a year. However, the classification crossed tax years. Therefore you'd be required to depreciate it, and there would be a 4562 for both 2015 and 2016 tax years.
Now I don't know if a tax transcript from 2015 would be available from the IRS, or if that would even have the details we're looking for. Most likely no. But have you checked? Generally, transcripts are free, whereas an actual copy of the tax return return as filed will cost. But the actually copy filed will "not" have what you're looking for anyway.
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript
