How do I clarify depreciation amount when I rented out a room in my home for nine months and turbotax does not allow me clarify that it was only 25% of the house?

[mike_kooi]

Actually I have been renting the room out since January of 2015 and then got married and he moved out at the end of September. So does that mean that I have to check off that I converted it from rental to personal use during the year?

[mike_kooi]

Fulton County, Georgia.  I used 25% because it is a relatively small condo and it is one of four rooms in the condo.  I can certainly adjust it down if I have to, but it is one of four rooms.  I guess if you add the two bathrooms it is one of five or six.

[Carl]

So are you working on your 2015 return? DId you report this on your 2015 return? Now this is starting to sound like a potential mess, since I wasn't aware of the above.

[mike_kooi]

Also, when I enter expenses. Am I supposed to enter the total of utilities, insurance, mortgage interest, etc. for the entire property for entire year without dividing them up? Does the program reduce them by days rented and percentage of the house rented or do I have to do that prior to entering them into the program? Again, there is little to no info provided by turbotax to guide me on this.

[mike_kooi]

I did report it last year. Everything seemed to work fine last year

[mike_kooi]

I am only working on the 2016 return

[mike_kooi]

I have spent over an hour talking to a Turbotax "expert" and they can't tell me how to do it correctly either.

[Carl]

Removed my comment here to help alleviate confusion

[mike_kooi]

But I did rent it out in 2016. For the first nine months of 2016 as noted above. See my previous posts. I also rented it out for the entire year in 2015. I only told you that because you suggested that I state that I converted it to rental use in 2016. That is not the case. It was already being used as a rental in 2015. Turbotax worked fine last year and depreciated the proper amount. This year it will not allow me to depreciate only a portion of the condo. I just spent two hours with someone from Turbotax who had no idea how to do anything. When she tried to forward me I got sent to a machine.

[mike_kooi]

to further clarify, the room was rented out from January 2015 through September 2016.

[Carl]

OH okay. Then my above still applies, But you will NOT select the "I converted to rentadl" or the "I converted to personal use", since it was already converted to rental on the 2015 tax return. It's still a rental, so the only thing selected is the "I rented out part of my home"
But what has me perplexed, is why "I rented part of my home" is not already selected by default. You did import from your 2015 return, right?  Regardless of my perplexed state here, the "I rented out part of my home" has to be selected. If not selected by default, then selected manually by you. There's more to check. Also, if you used the 25% figure last year, then you "have" to use the same figure this year for your rented space. But again, I'm expecting that to be already entered by default, if you imported from last year's return.

[mike_kooi]

I was not able to import my 2015 return.  I switched from online version to desktop CD and it doesn't seem to work for me. anyway, after looking back at my 15 return it does not appear that I used 25%. I used 5%. I am not sure why I went that low, but I think its because I wanted to keep a greater percentage of my mortgage interest and property taxes under my personal deductions.  

All that is helpful and I will use the same percentage as last year, but it still doesn't help me figure out where to plug that 5% number in. One of the tier three tax experts told me to just reduce the value of the property in order to fix it as he couldn't find a way to plug it in either. Of course, he also indicated that I could deduct 50% of my utilities even if I only depreciated 5% which surprised me.

[Carl]

We need to get the program working correctly. I know for a fact it will in your situation. Give me about an hour (hopefully less) to figure it out and get back to you. Since you are both using the Desktop version of TurboTax Home & Business, this should be easy. BTW - my screen shows you're using the online version. Poke around your online account settings and see if you can find a way to change that. I know there's a way. I just don't know it is all.

[Carl]

Oh, and don't just go reducing values either. That will bite you later, and is the same as hanging a sign on your front door that reads "AUDIT ME NOW! PLEASE! QUICK! HURRY! FAST!"

[mike_kooi]

I looked at the profile settings and it doesn't say anything about whether I'm online or desktop.  When I hit the "Help" icon in the desktop version it sent me here to ask the question.

I do have an online account from having used that for the past few years so that may be what is popping up when the program sends me to the internet. I guess trying to save money using a CD is costing me as this has pretty much taken a full day and I still don't know how to move forward.