I am in the buy and hold rental business, I do full rehabs then place a tenant. In the past I've done Schedule E and I am becoming quite an all star in the realm of deductions and depreciations, I even caught a mistake I made last year and refiled!
But, now my business is getting bigger, I'm on my sixth rental now. This time, I 1099'd so many people that I got worker's comp insurance. Now, I want to make sure I can claim the following business related expenses, which I haven't claimed in the past (just a few examples):
-Printer
-Cellular service
-Tax services (e.g. numreceipt)
-Security cameras
-IT services
-Workers Comp Insurance
-Professional Services
So, my questions are
-Can I place all these expenses in Schedule E? If so, where should I put them? Do I spread them out on all the homes, or divide a percentage equal to the use of each home?
-Can I create a Schedule C for these to make it easier on myself? The schedule C would only show business losses (I registered my business this year), the benefit would be the expenses that apply to the entire business are all in one place. I would prefer this because if I sell one of my homes and they happen to have my depreciated asset, then I loose all the future depreciation on that item (such as a mobile security camera system). Having a separate schedule C may also help me get approved for larger loans, as it may reduce my Debt-to-Income ratio, since the lenders may not look at Schedule C when verifying income.
-Is there any scenario where a real estate professional (I work 1000's of hours in RE, on top of my day job, I am a work-a-holic) would benefit from putting all of their rental assets and rents into a schedule C instead of E?
Thanks!
