I myself have found a few "disparities" with how TurboTax figures depreciation in certain and specific cases. Mainly dealing with when renting out a room in your primary residence. There are some situations where this "disparity" will carry over when converting an entire property to a rental. The program does the math correctly. However, the program doesn't provide the clarity that (in my personal opinion) I think it should on some screens. This commonly results in the program user entering incorrect data. So when the user enters incorrect data, that's what the program has to work with. The resulting depreciation figured will then be wrong.
Here's the guidance that will provide you the clarity necessary.
Date of Conversion - If this was your primary residence before, then this date is the day AFTER you moved out.
In Service Date - This is the date a renter "could" have moved in. Usually, this date is the day you put the FOR RENT sign in the front yard.
Number of days Rented - the day count for this starts from the first day a renter "could" have moved in. That should be your "in service" date if you were asked for that. Vacant periods between renters count also PROVIDED you did not live in the house for one single day during said period of vacancy.
Days of Personal Use - This number will be a big fat ZERO. Read the screen. It's asking for the number of days you lived in the property AFTER you converted it to a rental. I seriously doubt (though it is possible) that you lived in the house (or space, if renting a part of your home) as your primary residence or 2nd home, after you converted it to a rental.
Business Use Percentage. 100%. I'll put that in words so there's no doubt I didn't make a typo here. One Hundred Percent. After you converted this property or space to rental use, it was one hundred percent business use. What you used it for prior to the date of conversion doesn't count.
