Income earned on renting vacation ownership.

[hotzler]

I have a deeded timeshare and rented out some unused reservations. I got a 1099misc showing rental income for the entire amount of income, from which they deducted commission and sent me the rest. They said I need to claim all of it on my taxes. Where to put on 1040, rental property questions don't apply as this isn't 1 physical property. Can I put in other income as net amount?

[DanielV01 · Accepted solution]

It depends.  You can choose to claim the income as other income, but you cannot claim expenses against that income (the commissions are an expense against that income).  This probably is the correct treatment of your rental income, because renting a timeshare is probably not a for-profit activity, but is rather casual income.  

But that can also vary.  If you had significant rental activity then you would want to report it on Schedule E.  Since there apparently is more than one property involved, the best way to report would be to list separately each property address you rented in the year.  Doing so will allow you to deduct applicable expenses.  If you pay yearly expenses on the timeshare, you would list the number of rental days for each property (which will be divided by 365), and your yearly expenses are prorated to each rental property.  While this can involve some work, it would be accurate.

You have a choice, and what should guide your choice is the nature of the activity.  Were you trying to run a small rental enterprise, as it were, or was this an opportunistic rental that you took advantage of because you weren't going to use the timeshare?  If a small enterprise, you should report as a rental activity for Schedule E and deduct expenses.  If not, then report as other income and don't deduct expenses.