Hi, we purchased a home in a popular summer vacation area with the intent to rent it out during the summer and use it ourselves during the off season. We settled on it in October 2020, did some repairs and upgrades in November and December, and it will be rented through an agency this summer.
I am using TurboTax Home and Business, and have used Turbo Tax for many years, including when I operated a small consulting business. My question is, how do I handle expenses in 2020 when TurboTax says I shouldn't list it as a rental since I didn't offer it for rental in 2020? Do I just ignore this guidance and consider it rental property that just wasn't rented during that time? It is in the section where TT asks how many days the property was used for rental and how many for personal. I was going to put 0 for rental and 61 for personal.
Even more basic question: I was planning for the rental property to simply show a loss for 2020 (no rental income, just expenses), and then forward that to the 2021 tax year when we will have (hopefully!) substantial rental income from the summer season. Is this the correct way to handle this situation?
Thank You! Jerry
