My wife has a rental property that is entirely in her name and she makes the the management decisions. If we are filing jointly, can we claim the "active participant"?

[DoninGA · Accepted solution]

Yes, you can select Active Participant when filing as Married Filing Jointly for the rental property.

[Carl]

Just providing a bit of clarity here on the wording.

If your wife is the sole owner of the property and indicates so in the program, then yes, you still file joint. But on the rental property, "WE" don't participate. She does.

Most likely you're asking this question of the QBI deduction. If there's only one rental property here then I seriously doubt you meet the 250 hours "directly involved" requirement to qualify for QBI. I myself have 3 rental properties and I don't come anywhere even close to 100 hours with all three properties combined. That includes the approximate 40 hours I spent turning one rental property around between renters in 2019.