for rental income do I enter the amount I profited in a year, or do I enter the full amount of rent I charge my tenants in a year?

[Scott-Holt]

Lets say my mortgage is $1500 a month and Im charging $2000 a month to my tenants. I profit $500.00 dollars a month off my rental property.

For the field where I enter in my rental income into TurboTax would I enter $24,000 ($2000 x 12 months) or do i enter what I actually profited in a year which is $6000.00 (500 x 12 months)?

As of now I have entered in the 24,000 dollars for the 'rental income' field. Then, I went and deducted 10,000 dollars of deductions (real estate taxes, mortgage interest and insurance premiums). BUT then in the income summary for this rental property it says that I've profited 14,000.00 (24,000 minus the 10,000). The problem is that is much more than i profited in reality!

Please help!

[PattiF]

You would enter the total rent that was received.

Only the mortgage interest can be deducted, not the mortgage payment.

Are you taking depreciation for the property? That will reduce your rental profit and it is required by the IRS. 

Here's how to enter the depreciation:

Enter your rental property information through the TurboTax guided questions (or choose edit rental property if property is already listed) until you come to a screen that is titled, Your "rental property name" rental summary.

You will enter your rental property house here under "assets/depreciation".

[Scott-Holt]

@PattiF thank you so much for the reply. I just dont understand how turbo tax can claim that I made 4000 dollars more than what I actually profited and I'm getting taxed 1500 or so dollars more because of it! It just doesn't make sense to me..

Thank you for the tip on depreciation. I did not take that deduction yet and didn't know that it was required.