Should Turbo Tax allow my total expenses for a rental property in another country to exceed the total rental income for 2016?

I have a rental property in South Africa.  My total expenses (repairs etc) exceed the rental income.  I had 60 days personal use of the property.  Turbo Tax is only allowing total expenses to equal the rental income.  Is this correct?

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New Member

Investors & landlords

Yes,If the property is “used as a home,” your rental expense deduction is limited. This means your deduction for rental expenses can’t be more than the rent you received. For more about these rules, see Publication 527, Residential Rental Property (Including Rental of Vacation Homes).

<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.irs.gov/publications/p527/ch05.html">https://www.irs.gov/publications/p527/ch05.html</a>

[Personal use days 60 ]

If you or a family members use a vacation property for more than 14 days or 10 percent of the property’s rental time, the personal use limitations of IRC § 280A apply and IRC § 469 is no longer applicable. The IRC § 280A severely limits losses. See IRC § 469(j)(10)  

If you’re looking to claim the most tax breaks possible, you need to carefully track the amount of time you and your family spend at your vacation home.
DS30
New Member

Investors & landlords

It depends on your involvement in your rental property and your income level (reported in USD).

If you are an active participant in your rental property and your modified adjusted gross income in below a certain threshold (less than $100,000), you are allowed each year to deduct up to $25,000 of passive rental losses against ordinary income in the current year. (Please refer to this IRS link for more information about this special allowance under Reporting Rental Income, Expenses and Losses)

However, if you are not an active participant, your income is above the special allowance threshold or you have no other passive income to offset your passive rental losses, then any nondeductible passive losses from your rental will be carried forward to be used to offset future year's passive income.

So if you select that you are not an active participant, you can carryover your passive rental losses to a future year.

You will report your rental income and expense on Schedule E. If your expenses exceed your income, these expenses may be suspected due to the passive activity rules. (One note about foreign rental property, per the IRS, you are required to use a 40 year straight-line deprecation for foreign rental properties (as opposed to 27.5 years). See this IRS information about applicable recovery period for rental properties.

TurboTax will help guide you on entering this information. Make sure that you pay close attention to the questions regarding at-risk issues and limitations.

For more information on rental income and expenses, including passive activity loss limits, refer to Publication 527 and Publication 925, Passive Activity and At-Risk Rules.

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