TurboTax desktop not correctly splitting mortgage interest & taxes for my newly rented duplex

[felicityr]

I own a duplex and live upstairs. In prior years family members lived downstairs, but this year I started renting the second unit part of the way through the year. The downstairs unit is 45% of the square footage and I rented it for 25% of the year, so the portion of the mortgage interest and property taxes that should be applied to the rental income is 11.3% (45%x25%). I itemize on Schedule A so I want to get full credit for the 90% of mortgage interest I paid over there.

TurboTax online was not allowing me to allocate things properly so I bought Desktop to access the forms, but unfortunately I still cannot get it to allocate properly. If I leave the Owner-Occupied Rentals box unchecked, it allocates 25% of the costs to the rental (based on the number of days I rented). If I check the Owner-Occupied Rentals with 45% input, it allocates $0 to the rental but reduces the Schedule A amount reported to 55% of the total! If I check the Owner-Occupied Rentals with 11.3% input, it correctly calculates the Schedule A amount, but still allocates $0 to the rental deduction, leaving me incorrectly reporting rental income.

I have read Publication 527 multiple times and I am sure that it should not be $0 allocated to rental deduction! Does anyone know how to get TurboTax to correct this and accurately report the 11% of my mortgage interest & taxes that should be offsetting my rental income for 2024, and also accurately report the % that goes on Schedule A?

Absent that, does anyone know how to override the calculations and put the correct amounts into the forms? I know this cancels the accuracy guarantee but since it's not accurate I would rather have it be correct than have a fake guarantee...

[PatriciaV]

For an Owner-Occupied Rental, TurboTax allocates rental expenses based on the percentage of rental use, not the number of rental days. Also, for a property that is converted from personal to rental use, you need to enter only that portion of shared expenses (like mortgage interest and property taxes) that apply to the period when the property was used as a rental.

Also confirm that you have chosen the correct answers to these profile questions:

1. Multi-family rental
2. First year it was rented
3. Rent out a unit in a multi-unit property
4. Converted this from personal to rental use
5. Not rented all year; 92 days rented; 0 personal days
6. Let TurboTax do the math
7. Rental use Percentage based on square footage
8. Active participant

When you enter the allocated portion of shared expenses, the personal portion should flow to Schedule A. Be sure to enter the non-rental portion of any eligible itemized deductions separately under Deductions & Credits.

[felicityr]

It was the personal days that was screwing me up! I thought that was supposed to be all days that weren't rental days. When I changed it to 0 everything worked. Thank you!