The 1st year depr that he put down was $54, which is what it would be for the half month of December over 40 years. (51,582 / 40) * (.5/12)=54
Holy cow! He really messed that up big time. The math is all wrong. Take a look at IRS pub 946 at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/p946--2020.pdf. YOu'll see that foreign residential rental property (of which I am aware your property is not foreign) is depreciated over 39years. Not 40.
Now I'm assuming your costs basis of $51,582 is the value of the structure only, and does not include the value of the land. You use the worksheet that starts at the bottom of page 38 and continues on page 39, the correct math to figure that first year depreciation for 40 year property (which is not what you have) is your cost basis of $51,582 multiplied by the correct multiplier shown in table A13a on page 85, which is 0.104. That gives a first year depreciation amount of $5364. So I'm clueless as to why the CPA would have figured it the way you say they figured it. Doesn't make any sense. Can you access the 4562 for the last return done by the CPA, and the first return you completed and filed with TurboTax? So far, this seems to be an absolute cluster of a mess.
It's also possible I"m not understanding things correctly as it pertains to your timeline of events.
