That's great, I appreciate the clarification. Not to contradict you, but in between posting and seeing your reply I came across this verbiage in Pub 527:
De minimis safe harbor for tangible property.
If you elect this de minimis safe harbor for your rental activity for the tax year, you aren’t required to capitalize the de minimis costs of acquiring or producing certain real and tangible personal property and may deduct these amounts as rental expenses on line 19 of Schedule E. For more information on electing and using the de minimis safe harbor for tangible property, see chapter 1 of Pub. 535.
Just thought I would put that out there in case of any comment, but I don't take this to mean you have to use Line 19. Having let this sink in some more, I guess in many cases the item in question doesn't fit one of the standard expense categories otherwise you probably wouldn't have had the dilemma as to whether to depreciate or take the safe harbor in the first place (hence Line 19). But if it does, it does i.e. I understand that something that would seem to a lay person to be a repair, but that IRS rules would regard as a depreciable 'restoration', can now just go into the Repair line under the safe harbor.
No jacuzzis but in case you are bored, I have a semi-related question to clarify whether there is any issue if the physical invoice amount itself is >$2500 but is on a joint owned property i.e. the expense is the 50% share of the invoice which would be for an amount under the limit:
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/investments-and-rental-properties/discussion/2500-de-minimis-safe-...
Thanks again.
