Then you have to report all your rental income/expenses on SCH E as a part of your personal tax return. To make your life simple at tax time each year, this is how you need to do this. But I'm going to explain a few things first.
Rental income is passive income. That means you don't actually do anything to earn that money. All you do is "sit there" doing nothing and collecting the rent. Passive income is of course, taxable income. But it's not subject to the additional self-employment tax which currently is 12.6% in addition to whatever your regular tax rate may be (which is based on your income tax bracket.).
Earned income is income you make by "doing something" on a recurring basis to earn it. When you are self employed this earned income is subject to regular tax, and the additional 12.6% self-employment tax.
Now the SE tax is basically the employer side of social security and Medicare. So passive rental income does not contribute to your personal social security account, or Medicare. Additionally, you can not count passive income when figuring your maximum allowed contribution to your IRA either.
You'll basically work this through the Rental & Royalty Income (SCH E) section of the program. But pay attention to detail. In a separate answer box I've posted some information that is vitally important. It's extremely important that you set this up correctly in TurboTax the first time you do it. Otherwise, mistakes can grow exponentially over time and be costly to correct if it's a fair number of years down the road when you catch that error.
So my all means, if you have any questions as you're working this through, please ask. I've been doing the rental thing for 25 plus years now. Got lots of experience in this, but still have more to learn also. It never ends. 🙂
One last question: Since you call this a "seasonal" rental, what is the status of the property when out of season? Is it still available for rent? If so, is it realistic that it could be rented? Maybe you use it as a "hunting lodge" for you and friends in the winter? I ask this, because if it's high in the mountains and snowed in for 6 months a year, then while it may be available for rent, the chances of actually getting a renter in it would probably be zero percent. In such a case, the honest answer is "no, it's not available for rent".
