if I finish construction in 2020, therefore making the "in service date" say 2/1/2020 (when I got my final permit approved) but I spent all of the money in 2019, how does that work for my 2019 taxes?
Depreciation of those items listed in the Assets/Depreciation section starts on the date the asset is placed "in service". The in service date for rental property is basically the first day a renter "could" have moved in, which is usually the day you put the FOR RENT sign in the front yard.
If the property was not in service and "Move in ready" on or before Dec 31 of 2019, don't bother entering the property improvements on your 2019 return. The only reason to enter the assets is to depreciate them. So if the property was not move-in-ready in 2019, you have nothing to depreciate for that specific asset or assets in 2019 since the asset did not exist in a "move in ready" state in 2019.
you are a wizard
Appreciate the compliment. But it's not that hard really if you think it through. You just got to remember that when dealing with TurboTax and IRS rules and regulations, there's what I call a "generation gap" or "communications gap" between us mere mortals who are the end users, the support staff who is most knowledable in how to use the program, the programmers who write the actual computer code for the program, and the folks who write the actual IRS regulations.
-Us mere mortals are the lowest form of life.
- Support staff are those who have been taken up by the higher life forms and "enlightened". Over time, they tend to start losing touch with us mere mortals and forget their roots. Perfectly normal really.
- Programmers who write the computer code for the TurboTax program are not from here. Code writing it outsourced to another planet called Tatooine So there's a bit of a language barrier.
- IRS regulation is outsource to another planet called Cantonica. The native language there is Gank and requires one to use a babelfish to understand it. But if the one using the babelfish is not "enlightened" as explained above, they will suffer permanent brain damage and will never be able to do a tax return wrong ever again. Therein lies the source of my illness. 🙂
