I used my personal car on trips to do maintenance on a rental property, which I just sold. Do I need to repay some of the prior deductions I took for the car?

The TurboTax questions are a little misleading because they ask if my business use of the car dropped below 50% last year. My business usage has always been far below 50% though. 

I am also curious if the usage of my car when moving everything out of the rental to sell it (and other moving expenses) are deductible in any way. Thanks!

Carl
Level 15

Investors & landlords

You didn't sell the car as part of the rental sale did you? I expect not.

Your vehicle expenses and claimed incurred "after" the last renter moved out are not deductible as a rental expense, any way you look at it. I also don't see any way for them to be deductible as a sales expense either. Also, any expenses incurred after the last renter moved out prior to the sale are not a rental expense. That includes maintenance and repair costs. But depending, repairs and some maintenance costs may be deductible as a sales expense. It's one of those things incurred while "preparing the property for sale".

Assuming you sold the property in 2017, here's how to report it in TurboTax. The below also tells you how to deal with the "final disposition" of the vehicle, since you did not sell it as a part of the rental property sale.

            • Reporting the Sale of Rental Property

If you qualify for the "lived in 2 of last 5 years" capital gains exclusion, then when prompted you WILL indicate that this sale DOES INCLUDE the sale of your main home. For AD MIL personnel who don't qualify because of PCS orders, select this option anyway, because you "MIGHT" qualify for at last a partial exclusion.

Start working through Rental & Royalty Income (SCH E) "AS IF" you did not sell the property. One of the screens near the start will ahve a selection on it for "I sold or otherwise disposed of this property in  2017". Select it. After you select the "I sold or otherwise disposed of this property in 2017" you continue working it through "as if" you still own it. When you come to the summary screen you will enter all of your rental income and expenses, even it it's zero. Then you MUST work through the "Sale of Assets/Depreciation" section. You must work through each individual asset one at a time to report its disposition (in your case, all your rental assets were sold).

Understand that if more than the property itself is listed in your assets list, then you need to allocate your sales price across all of your assets.  You will only allocate the structure sales price; you will NOT allocate the land sales price, since the land is not a depreciable asset.  Then if you sold this rental at a gain, you must show a gain on all assets, even if that gain is $1. Likewise if you sold at a loss then you must show a loss on all assets, even if that loss is $1

Basically when working through an asset you select the option for "I stopped using this asset in 2017" and go from there. Note that you MUST do this for EACH AND EVERY asset listed.

When you finish working through everything listed in the assets section, if you ever at any time you owned this rental you claimed vehicle expenses, then you must also work through the vehicle section and show the disposition of the vehicle. Most likely, your vehicle disposition will be "removed for personal use", as I seriously doubt you sold your vehicle as a part of this rental sale.