I haven't depreciated a rental property over the past 5 years. How do I catch up?

[TaxGuyBill · Accepted solution]

The only way to 'catch up' on depreciation is to file Form 3115 with your tax return.  Amending is not allowed if you have missed the depreciation for 2 or more years.

TurboTax does not help you with that, and due to its complexity, I highly recommend going to a tax professional to file this year's tax return with Form 3115.

[cwlowe]

I found this site that seems to walk through the form. I have similar problem and I sold the property last year so I have been trying to figure out options. I have no experience with this so it could be wrong.
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.natptax.com/TaxKnowledgeCenter/FederalTaxInformation/whitepapers/summaries/Documents/For...>

[PaulaM]

If you haven't been depreciating your rental property, you may want to consider amending your past returns to do so (for the last 3 yrs). Because even if you have not claimed the depreciation, the IRS will assume you did. 

You will have to recapture (and pay taxes) on the allowable depreciation if you should dispose of the property down the road. Amending will allow you to get some benefit from that depreciation expense that is assumed to have occurred.

If you have not been depreciating your property, then for 2017, add your asset in the Rental section and input the original date of purchase. This will calculate the depreciation for this year and going forward, as well as completing a depreciation report that will list the prior depreciation (accumulated depreciation) amount that should have been taken. 

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1894381-how-to-amend-change-or-correct-a-return-you-already-filed

https://www.thebalance.com/depreciation-recapture-3192979

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p946.pdf