Sorry for the confusion- it is not that I have been depreciating or showing my personal residence on a Schedule E from 2016-2020, it is that I just simply stopped depreciating and began claiming it as my personal residence again (without properly converting to personal use/disposing of). The program I am using does not ask me for any information regarding days of personal use vs. days of business when running through depreciation step by step (although i was careful about reading the tricky fine print on this one for the general info section for my schedule e). On form 4562 I could enter the percentage business use which I could calculate based on the number of days out of the year it was rented after placing it in service. For the cost basis I would take the original cost basis, minus the accumulated depreciation (through 2015) and put it back in service 3/1/20 with that amount as my new cost basis? (Just to confirm, side note question- for my properties which have been continuously rented out for years, the cost basis should remain the same every year, correct?) Or would I use the fair market value at the time of placing it back in service, which is significantly less than my original cost basis? And then should I dispose of/convert to personal use on 10/1/20, when I moved back, or just stop depreciating again at that point? For my understanding and future reference, if I were to ever rent it out again, I could again decrease the original cost basis by the total accumulated depreciation (including 2020), and depreciate based on that new basis?
@Carl
