In which section did you enter the new roof and in which category? The new roof should have been entered in the Assets/Depreciation section as Residential Rental Real Estate (which has a recovery period of 27.5 years).
Also, do not confuse the special depreciation allowance (bonus depreciation) with Section 179.
I was double checking my sons taxes for him. I did know that 179 didn't apply and knew depreciation was 27.5 years. I was trying to help him understand what went wrong with how he was doing it.
He did enter in the Assets/Depreciation section. It wasn't bonus depreciation. It is an actual new roof (not re-shingle etc) and doesn't qualify for (it was $11,000.)We identified it as multi-family rental real estate which shouldn't be commercial. I walked through all of the steps and came up with the same Turbo response--Sec 179.
He is using the "Self Employed" Turbo Tax--could it assume it is commercial (as in industrial type) real estate due the "self employed" designation?
I want to understand this for future reference--In this instance I knew enough to question it, but that may not always be the case...
Did you enter it in the Sch C section instead of the Sch E section by mistake ???
No--But that would be a reasonable thing to double check. It's schedule E.
I'm using the "Self Employed" version of turbotax. Could it be assuming it's an actual commercial (industrial) property? Someone else said a roof needs to be entered as "residential real estate" under the expense/depreciation--as if it's a whole new piece of residential real estate?? This doesn't seem very intuitive, but you do get the correct depreciation that way. That's how I ended up forcing it into the correct 27.5 year depreciation.