Thank you! Sounds like I need to call again and speak to another agent. Just to make sure I understand you correctly, you're saying that there is no way for a homeowner to take the full value of a major expense/improvement against the sale of a home, regardless of whether its a rental. The major expense must be deprecated and only the deprecated value counts against the home value when the home sells. So even if I weren't renting, I wouldn't be able to just claim the full amount of the improvement in the future when I sell - I will have to deprecate it. Am I understanding that correctly?
In which case yes, it makes much more sense for me to go ahead and list the property as an asset even just for a year or two, and take a minor write-off for the deprecated value of the expense for two years. Thank you so much for taking the time to steer me in the right direction! I will definitely make this adjustment on my return.
For future reference (and any other confused homeowner who runs across this): Where would I record in my tax return future major expenses (when I'm no longer renting) that would need to be deprecated? Eg. in five years we are no longer renting, and we replace the electrical, but we don't sell for another 15 years. Is there somewhere I need to record this when it happens, or do I not record the major expenses anywhere in my taxes (just keep the receipts) until the time of the sale, at which point presumably TurboTax would ask for the year/amount of the expense and do a calculation for me? I'm assuming it's the latter, but I want to make sure I understand.
Thanks again for all of your help.
