Real estate taxes for rental property

[bigluke00]

I am on the screen titled "Report Real Estate Taxes" in the property rental section. It asks to enter "real estate taxes paid on your rental property. I only rented the property half the year and I lived in it the other half. Thus screen is not clear whether I enter the real estate taxes for the WHOLE year, or only for the half I rented it out. Other screens were very clear that I should only enter the portion for which I rented it out (e.g., the screen for mortgage interest paid). Thank you!

[MargaretL · Accepted solution]

Please enter only the rental portion of the real estate taxes as your rental expense. The remaining amount is your personal expense written off in Deductions & Credits section (just like mortgage interest). The same applies to any other expenses... for example utilities. If you paid utilities as a landlord and then as you lived there, you would allocate the annual utilities amount between rental portion (deductible as rental expense) and personal amount (not deductible at all).

[echristo]

When I enter the following Rental expenses the total expense come out short:

Management Fees: 1,695

Real Estate Taxes: 781 - Prorated

Insurance: 30 - Prorated

Professional Fees: 1500

Utilities: 904 - Prorated HOAs

Total Expenses should be: 4910

Turbo Tax Expenses calculate: 3454

Can you let me know if some of these expenses are not supposed to be prorated in data entry?

[echristo]

Also noticed that Turbo Tax says it only accounted for $663 in rental taxes.

[AmyC]

You want the actual expenses for the rental to match what you are deducting on the Sch E. If you asked the program to prorate for you, then you do not need to prorate, you can enter the full amount.

@echristo