We have rental properties that were vacant all year due to hurricane damage. How or where can we report our expenses incurred and recognize our losses?

[erik_0566]

Normally we deduct expenses against income for each property. Since each property had zero income, Turbo Tax has removed the properties from the income section, stating that we don't have to report on these this year. But we want to be able to claim our expenses and capital improvements. I usually do my taxes manually and have not used Turbo Tax before.

[RobertB4444]

it's not that you had zero income.  It's that the properties were available to be rented for zero days.  During the time period that you are doing renovations on a rental property and it is taken off the market it is not treated as a rental property.  It's just treated as an extra home that you have.  Renovation costs are added to the depreciable basis for the home.  Regular expenses are not deductible any more than the regular expenses on your home are.

Your capital improvements will be depreciated beginning on the first date that the property becomes available to rent again.  Keep track of all the capital expenditures so that you can recoup some of the losses that way.

If your damage was from a federally declared disaster you can create a disaster loss that will give you a credit for the out of pocket expenses that you had due to the disaster.

@erik_0566 

[erik_0566]

@RobertB4444 

thank you so much for your explanation. Yes these are the result of a federally declared disaster. I appreciate you pointing me in the right direction!