Okay, I think I see the problem now:
There is screen in the interview, under the "Wages & Income > Rental Properties and Royalties > Property Profile" section, titled "Any Property Improvements Made?", that states "Enter the costs of any additions or improvements made prior to when the property was available for rent" and has a space to enter "remodeling" costs, but this is NOT where such costs should be added IF they are not included/considered in the source (property tax bill/appraisal) one is using for the land/improvement breakdown percentages.
INSTEAD, these remodeling/renovation costs should be entered in the "Wages & Income > Rental Properties and Royalties > Assets/Depreciation" section. This first screen in this portion of the interview, titled "Your Property Assets", states "Enter all of your major improvements, assets for rental buildings, or mortgage refinance fees be selecting Add and Asset." Here, a new "asset" can be added that will be automatically associated with the property detailed in the Property Profile mentioned earlier. The "asset" (i.e. renovation cost) added here will then be FULLY (100%) depreciated IF no portion of this asset's value is assigned to "land".
This is not actually "gaming" a poorly-designed interview to make it come out correctly; this is actually the way it was designed to be input. What is poorly designed, and highly ambiguous, is the language in the two different areas where renovation/remodeling costs can be input. There is basically nothing to differentiate these two areas from the language used in the interview.
Have I got this right?
