WHile I've been a landlord with three properties for 30 plus years now, as well as a TTX user since 2003/4, one of the things with the Home & Business version is that you enter your business income *FIRST*, before anything else. So that "tax due/refund due" number doesn't mean jack squat at that point. No ther income has been entered and absolutely no SCH A deductions have been entered. LIkewise, all the credits one may qualify for haven't been taken into account, because they can't be so early in the program - at least not accurately.
As for the QBI stuff, I'm only about 40-50% up to stuff on the subject. That's because even with all three of my rental properties combined as a single enterprise, I can't come anywhere close to the 250 hours directly involved requirement. That includes the year I had to rentals go empty and I did the turnaround myself. For that particular year, I didn't even break 100 hours "directly involved" in all three properties combined. So for someone who has three or less rental properties I do find it questionable about them qualifying for the QBI. But then, who am I to question your active involvement? One person may have rental properties that require extremely little maintenance with good tenants, while another person may have properties that are high maintenance with not-so-good tenants.
The irony for me is, one of my three properties *is* high maintenance compared to the other two. But what I consider high maintenance, another may consider just the opposite. It just depends on what one has available for comparisons.
Now for expenses, if you look at IRS Publication 527 page 3 at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p527.pdf it doesn't come out and directly say you "have" to claim rental expenses. But if you think you're reducing your tax liability by not claiming them, that train of thought is just wrong. Remember, what that "tax owed/refund due" number says at the top of the program means absolutely nothing until the tax return has been completed in it's entirety and you are ready to file. So until you are finished, that number is going to be all over the place.
What I do before actually e-filing the return, is print it. Then I can go through everything and "follow the money" with the worksheets and calculation forms to see exactly how the program arrived at a figure. I can say that doing that for my 2019 taxes I was able to identify a major problem area that was missed in years past. Thankfully the issue I found didn't affect me directly. It only affects those who rent out a part of their primary residence and it only affects them in the first tax year of doing so.
