The cost basis would be the cost of your home plus improvements made throughout the years. Filing for a casualty loss it a bit complex and the amount has to be high for you to benefit. Only the amount over 10% of your income will actually get applied to the Schedule A.
Perhaps the following will help:
Individuals are required to claim their casualty and theft losses as an
itemized deduction on Form 1040, Schedule A Itemized Deductions.
- For property held by you for personal use, Subtracted any
salvage value (zero for theft) and any insurance or other
reimbursement from the loss amount.
- Then, subtract $100 from each casualty or theft
event that occurred during the year.
- Then, take that amount and subtract 10% of
your adjusted gross income from that total to calculate your allowable
casualty and theft losses for the year.
- That's the amount that goes on your Schedule A Itemized
Deductions.
If your property is personal-use property (your home) or is not completely destroyed,
the amount of your casualty loss is the lesser of:
- The
adjusted basis of your property, or
- The
decrease in fair market value of your property as a result of the casualty
More details can be found at this link http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc515.html
That said, the amount would have to be pretty large for you to be able
benefit. Also, you must file Schedule A as I stated above. But, if
you want to give it a shot in the Casualty and Theft section of the software,
it wouldn't hurt.
How to enter it into TurboTax: While
inside the software and working on your return, type casualty loss in
the Search at the top of the screen (you may see a magnifying glass there).
There will be a popup that says Jump to casualty loss.
Select that to get to the general area.
