Depreciation recapture on sale of Second Home only rented briefly 1x and small weighted depreciation only taken 1x. Use 4797 or 3115?

[ColeenD3 · Accepted solution]

If you properly depreciated your rental for the time it was rented, use Form 4797. Form 3115 is used when you never took the depreciation.

[Carl]

only rented briefly

If the period of rental was

 - Less than twelve months and;

 - within a single tax year then;

you are not required to take depreciation provided it was only rented for a period of time within one tax year for the entire time you owned it.

So if you rented it for 4 months in 2015 and then 6 months in 2018, you have to depreciate.

Understand also that this includes all business use. For example, if in the past you claimed a home office for your W-2 job (prior to 2018 of course) or claimed a home office when you were self-employed, you were required to take depreciation for that too. (After 2015 someone claiming an HO had the option of taking a "per-square foot" deduction in lieu of depreciation. I don't know if that counts "as" depreciation though.)

[trussakov]

Thank you.  Using a form for Sale of Business Property 4797 is what concerned me since this is just a Second Home that I rented one time for short duration.