I have never had any losses on my rental property since I had owned it. Turbo tax is wanting me to file it now, do I need to file this even though I don't have any losses?
You very well may have a loss, as it's not common for long term residential rental property to show a profit - especially if there's a mortgage on it.
Due to changes with the TCJA in 2018, you can now deduct a maximum of $25K of those passive losses that exceed your passive rental income, against other ordinary income - provided of course you have the otherwise taxable other ordinary income to claim it against and deduct it from.
Take a look at the 8582. Is there an amount on line 3? If so, file the form.
Basically, if you are e-filing the return, the program will e-file all forms required by the IRS. If you elect the option to "print and mail" the return the program will print only the forms required for filing, if the program prints it, then mail it.
Will it look odd to the IRS if I start filing it now or should I not?
Humans are not perfect. If things are wrong on a tax return the IRS is not going to send down unmarked black hawk helicopters to bag and hogtie the tax filer, take them back to DC and drop them into the IRS dungeon because they made a mistake. (A bit dramatic, I know😋)
There's nothing special to be concerned about here. it's kinda like you're getting worked up about nothing. Remember, in today's world it's highly unlikely a human will ever lay eyes on your return, unless the computer that processes it has a reason to flag it for human review. Generally, those reasons pertain to honest mistakes, far more than they do intentional tax fraud. Oh, and even the computer screws up at times too!
Even with honest mistakes, it's the computer that generates the letter one gets in the mail. A human only becomes aware of it when one of two things happens.
1) If you don't respond to the letter within the time frame allotted, a human at the IRS is most likely made aware of this. What they "do" when they become aware, I really don't know.
2) The so-called "error" the computer flagged on your return is either not an error, or was incorrectly flagged as an error because of incorrect reporting on the tax filer's part. When you mail or fax your response and supporting documents to the IRS, a human has to bet involved to either agree or disagree with your respons and adjust your tax return in their computers accordingly.
Keep in mind that when the IRS computers flag tax returns for errors or whatever, it is not automatically assumed you are being malicious. In fact, it's quite the opposite and is assume to just be a mistake on the tax payer's part. Most of the time, it's a tax payer mistake. But there are a fair number of times it's an IRS mistake. You know the old saying.... STUFF HAPPENS.
Now if you're concerned, you can always buy Audit Defense for the 2021 tax return. You'll be offered that option once you complete your return, when you start the actual "filing" process.
